(Fort Wayne) News-Sentinel

A driverless vehicle measure was among five bills languishing on the House floor as time ran out on the Indiana General Assembly’s 2018 session last week.

The bill would have provided a basic framework for the regulation and future development of autonomous cars in Indiana.

Ironically, the necessity of such regulations was brought to light when a pedestrian was struck and killed by an Uber autonomous vehicle near Phoenix. The SUV, with an emergency backup driver behind the wheel, hit a woman walking her bicycle on a street in Tempe, Arizona, at night. It was believed to be the first pedestrian death associated with self-driving technology.

The accident has brought calls for tougher self-driving regulations. The National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration has approved guidelines for the autonomous vehicle industry, and 21 states have passed legislation related to autonomous vehicles.

Indiana’s House Bill 1341, which was unanimously passed by the House in January, died on the floor as time ran out on the legislative session. The bill “requires all automated vehicles to be registered with the BMV; allows licensed drivers to operate automated vehicles on the highway; and establishes an automated vehicle oversight task group that would have to approve the operation of self-driving cars that don’t require a driver in any capacity.”

The bill’s author, Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, has said that the safety of Indiana residents is the No. 1 priority in establishing such regulations. “We’re committed in the state to moving forward and encouraging innovation, but we’re just not going to compromise Hoosier safety,” Soliday said.

And it was apparently Soliday’s concerns about public safety that drove his opposition to the Senate’s version of the driverless vehicle bill, because it would have removed regulations from the House version. Thus, Soliday was blamed by some in the Legislature for holding things up at the 11th hour of the session, causing the chaos that left the session’s work unfinished and led to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s call for a special session in May.

Holcomb said that even though the autonomous vehicle regulations bill was one of his own priorities in the regular session, he isn’t asking for a second shot at passing it this year in order to keep the special session focused on other priorities, especially a school safety funding bill.

Indiana legislators now will have plenty of time to further research the AV issue in order to make sure Indiana gets it right when establishing regulations for driverless vehicles on Hoosier roads.

This was distributed by the Hoosier State Press Association.