CARS.COM — The federal government is climbing aboard the self-driving bandwagon in a big way. President Barack Obama has proposed $3.9 billion in new spending over the next decade to fund projects that accelerate the development and sale of self-driving cars.
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The proposal, which will kick off in the 2017 fiscal year, will fund programs that test connected-car systems in designated parts of the U.S., as well as develop common standards with automakers for connected and self-driving cars.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also committed to developing guidance during the next six months with the auto industry to deploy and operate autonomous cars.
In the meantime, one barrier to incoming technology is automakers' interpretation of the government's vehicle safety standards. NHTSA encouraged automakers to ask for interpretations of those standards whenever clarification was needed, and the agency says BMW recently did just that, turning an initial rejection of its driverless parking system into an approval. This likely clears the way for the 7 Series' delayed driverless-parking feature to reach the U.S. market.
Automakers can even ask NHTSA for exemptions from current rules if it's for the sake of safety innovations, Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx told reporters today in Detroit. NHTSA's so-called "exemption authority" will enable the agency to allow up to 2,500 cars to hit the road for as long as two years under such exemptions, the agency said.
"If we in the government don't change our ways, drivers of the future will not be moving on our highways," Foxx said. "They'll be crawling in traffic."
Adding that human error causes about 80 percent of car accidents, Foxx said that the agency is "bullish on automated vehicles" and intends "to do everything we can to advance safe, smart and sustainable transportation innovations."
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