It'll be a little longer before drivers begin sharing the road with semis with no human on board. The self-driving tech company Aurora Innovation has delayed its driverless truck launch in Texas until next year.
Texas has been a testing ground for driverless semis for years.
“They have had self-driving 18-wheelers up and down I-45, across I-30, across I-20 for several years, but they have a human in the seat. So they still have a human in the seat in case something goes array,” said Amy Witherite, founder of Witherite Law Group and traffic safety advocate.
Aurora, a leader in the self-driving semi industry, planned to begin hauls without humans by the end of 2024.
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However, late last month, it pushed its launch back to April 2025 so it could continue to validate its self-driving technology.
Witherite welcomed the news.
“We as human beings certainly aren't perfect. We certainly have many, many wrecks with 18-wheelers operated by human beings but yet we're not quite to the point where we show that the human being is less safe than a technology,” said Witherite.
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Witherite recently penned an opinion piece in The Dallas Morning News saying there is "not enough federal or state oversight" for driverless trucks and cars, “which should concern anyone who drives on our streets and highways,” she wrote.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are the federal agencies that oversee driverless semis.
Witherite said she sees the benefits of self-driving semis but believes companies should pump the breaks.
“We just need to do this in a prudent and reasonable manner so that families aren't tragically impacted by the rush to get driverless 80,000-pound vehicles on the roadway," Witherite said.
Aurora has emphasized its commitment to safety from the start, telling NBC 5 in an email, "We're proud that Aurora's autonomous trucking product has the confidence of safety leaders in Texas and the logistics industry. As we've prepared for driverless operations, we've worked closely with the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Department of Public, and local police departments like the Frisco PD."
Next year's launch has also been scaled back.
Aurora now said it expected to deploy up to 10 driverless trucks, about half of what the company said it previously planned.
