The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed eliminating brake pedal requirements for fully autonomous vehicles. Self-driving cars can now skip the part where humans pretend they have control.
This makes perfect sense. Brakes exist because humans need to stop things. Computers don't panic. They calculate optimal deceleration rates while you're busy wondering if that podcast about murder cults was based on a true story.
The regulation change would let manufacturers deploy vehicles without manual controls. No steering wheel. No pedals. Just a rolling algorithm that merges into traffic better than your uncle who "doesn't trust GPS." NHTSA figured out that requiring brake pedals in cars with no drivers is like requiring a lifeguard at a pool with no water.
Retail traders heard this news and immediately started googling "self-driving car stocks" as if they're about to crack the code that every institutional investor with a Bloomberg terminal missed. They'll buy shares in a company that makes rubber floor mats for vehicles that no longer have floors. Diversification.
The proposal still needs public comment and final approval. Meaning we'll spend six months listening to people who can't parallel park explain why computers shouldn't drive. These are the same people who think cruise control is "basically autopilot" and lane departure warnings are "just suggestions."
Automakers love this. They've been installing brake pedals in autonomous test vehicles like a formality at a execution. The pedals sat there doing nothing except taking up space that could've been used for another cup holder or a place to charge the phone you'll be staring at instead of the road you're not driving on anyway.
Removing brake pedals won't make autonomous vehicles safer or more dangerous. It'll just make them more honest about what they already were: machines that never needed your input in the first place.
Photo by Senad Palic on Unsplash
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