Episode 31: Sen. Gary Peters Talks Self-driving Cars and Taking the Long Way on his Motorcycle

Senators, industry and interest groups continue their negotiations over that chamber’s self-driving car bill AV START (S. 1885). Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), one of the co-authors of the legislation, returned in August from a five-day motorcycle tour of Michigan where he had long stretches of road to think about how autonomous technology should be deployed. We recently sat down with Senator Peters in his Washington office where we talked about his love of motorcycles: “My view is, if I have to go from Point A to Point B, why not do that on a motorcycle?” And how riding influenced his approach to writing the AV START legislation. Peters and his co-author Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune are working to push the bill through the Senate before year’s end, which Peters thinks will result in a safer testing environment. “You can still put vehicles on the road right now without any kind of regulation or oversight,” he said. His bill “will allow the testing to go through in a safer manner than it is now,” Peters said in a sit-down interview for our Code and Conduit podcast.