LETTER: Autonomous vehicles increase risks for motorcyclists
In response to your Tuesday editorial on motorcycle fatalities in Las Vegas:
Motorcyclists realizing that they are navigating local roads at their own risk is a never-ending thought when I ride. Add that warning to the fact that distracted drivers have always been an inherent danger — along with the advent of cellphones, touch screens and now “driverless” vehicles — the threat is exacerbated exponentially.
Contributing to the risk of riding a motorcycle beyond the local level, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has allowed manufacturers of autonomous vehicles to be beta tested on public roadways without motorcycle recognizing technology. Combine the rush to get this new technology to market with driver inattentiveness, driver misconceptions that an auto-piloted vehicle is like cruise control, plus other built-in distractions, along with beta testing in today’s high-volume traffic, and it is a prescription for disaster and increased fatalities involving motorcycle.
To help reduce the threat from driverless vehicles, the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, along with supportive members of Congress, is requesting the highway administration review and prohibit all AVs without motorcycle-recognizing capabilities from using public roadways until it can be demonstratively proved that AVs are safe for all highway users.
In addition to having distracted drivers face “significant consequences,” manufacturers of “driverless” vehicles must be restricted from using public highways to beta test until they assure everyone that these vehicles can be safely operated without endangering unsuspecting motorcyclists, among others.
