Driverless Industry Surges Forward While Hill Hiccups on Regulation

Sen. John Thune was test-driving a car of the future when he ran into a very 20th-century problem: traffic. In 2016, Washington’s local laws forced Thune’s autonomous-capable Chrysler sedan to motor into neighboring Virginia before it could show off the no-hands navigation. That’s where the South Dakota Republican got stuck in a tide of commuters. “Evidently driverless cars are not going to help our traffic jams,” he said. Thune was an early advocate for autonomous vehicles, but his experience among a fleet giving Congress test rides that day is a good example of why Capitol Hill needs to set uniform standards for driverless cars before the technology...