Attorney Amy Witherite, whose firm specializes in motor vehicle accidents, is advocating for regulations on driverless trucks. A public opinion poll commissioned by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety found that 86% of respondents expressed concerns about sharing the road with driverless trucks, coming soon to major Interstate Highways in Texas.The fact is there are more regulations regarding student drivers than there are for the owner/operators of 80,000-pound trucks that will be sharing our highways with school buses, families and everyone else who uses our state’s highways,” says Amy Witherite, founder of the Witherite Law Group and an expert of motor vehicle safety.
“Student drivers have to pass written and road tests,” notes Witherite. “There is no test for whether a driverless truck is safe to operate. It is left solely up to the trucking company and manufacturers who have invested millions in the technology and stand to profit when it is implemented. Put simply the fox is watching the hen house.”
Even the ultra-conservative Project 2025 has urged the federal government to come up with standards noting … “current regulations were written before the advent of automated vehicles and driving systems.”
Local public safety agencies do not seem to be prepared for the imminent deployment of these vehicles either. Open records requests to public safety agencies along the Dallas to Houston route showed none could provide examples of training or protocols in place for dealing with autonomous trucks.
“The public and lawmakers have been lulled into a sense of comfort by slick videos showing the vehicles operating in pristine conditions,” said Witherite. “In the real-world weather conditions, erratic or unsafe drivers, unexpected road hazards and equipment failure all pose serious life-threatening potential problems.
“Sensors can fail, software can be corrupted or hacked, and computer controls can malfunction,” notes Witherite. “That is why in aviation automation disconnects when problems are detected, and control is returned to human pilots who are in the cockpit and at the controls.”
The latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report (2021) showed Texas had the most fatalities involving commercial trucks of any state. According to Drivewyze, there were nearly 4,500 motor vehicle traffic fatalities and nearly 19,000 serious injuries in Texas throughout 2022, which equals a traffic death every 1 hour and 57 minutes.
The Witherite Law Group specializes in vehicle accident cases and offers crucial support for individuals involved in accidents with driverless vehicles. For more information visit their website. www.witheritelaw.com.