Feds Let Driverless Trucks Ditch the Warning Triangle
Here is a regulation that assumed, with total confidence, that every truck has a driver. When a big rig breaks down on the shoulder, federal law says the driver must switch on the hazards and then — this is the good part — climb out, walk back down the road, and place reflective warning triangles behind the vehicle, all within ten minutes. It is a rule written for a human with legs. On October 7, that rule quietly lost to a machine that has no legs at all. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration granted Aurora Innovation and other driverless-truck operators a five-year exemption: their trucks may now replace the triangles with amber warning beacons mounted on the cab. Nobody has to get out and walk. There is nobody to get out. It sounds like a footnote. It isn't. This is the first durable federal carve-out for driverless freight — and the fight over it, three years of lawsuits, waivers and 402 public comments, is a preview of every autonomy battle still to come. What Wa...