Essays
The Journal of Law and Mobility publishes short, persuasive essays by industry leaders, academics, professionals, and the Journal editors and staff. Essays respond to current events, as well as legal and policy debates. Submissions of essays between 800 and 2,000 words are always welcome.
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Quick Takeaways From a Few Weeks on Public Transit in Washington, D.C.
In my previous posts, I have written a lot about city design and integrating emerging forms of transit, primarily automated vehicles, into the transportation landscape of a city. I am spending this summer in Washington, DC, and am getting an up-close look at this city’s transit options. I…Automated Vehicles Will Present New Challenges for Criminal Enforcement
As we move towards a future of fully automated vehicles, the types of crime – and attendant need for criminal enforcement – committed with cars is likely to evolve. As our transit system becomes more automated, the danger of a hack, and the difficulty of discovering the crime through ordinary…Rush Delivery: Robots Take Over Sidewalks (Part 1 of 3)
All the way back in December, I wrote about how various companies, including Amazon (in partnership with Toyota), Postmates, Domino’s and Kroger were all working on using CAVs and drones to deliver goods to consumers. Since then there have been a number of news stories…Beyond the Coasts: Is it Just “A Different Approach”?
Many have claimed that EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) would “kill AI”. Shortly after its entry into force at the end of May 2018, the New York Times was already carrying industry concerns: “the new European data privacy legislation is so stringent that it could kill off data-driven…Industry Efforts at Privacy Regulation
A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post outlining the fledgling legal efforts to address the increasingly urgent privacy concerns related to automated vehicles. While Europe’s General Data Privacy Regulation and California’s Consumer Privacy Act set a few standards to limit data sharing, the US as a whole has…CAVs Add New Urgency to Data Privacy Debate
For the past several months, this blog has primarily focused on new legal questions that will be raised by connected and automated vehicles. This new transportation technology will undoubtedly raise novel concerns around tort liability, traffic stops, and city design. Along with raising novel problems, CAVs will…Of Cops and Algorithms: A (Short) Waymo Story
With roughly a clip a month – most of these being corporate fluff – Waymo’s YouTube channel is not the most exciting nor informative one. At least, those (like me) who keep looking for clues about Waymo’s whereabouts should not expect anything to come out of there. That was…Should Automated Vehicles Break The Law?
Earlier this month, the Journal of Law and Mobility hosted our first annual conference at the University of Michigan Law School. The event provided a great opportunity to convene some of the top minds working at the intersection of law and automated vehicles. What struck me most about the…The Trolley, And It’s Not A Problem
The “Trolley Problem” has been buzzing around for a while now, so much that it became the subject of large empirical studies which aimed at finding a solution to it that be as close to “our values” as possible, as more casually the subject of an episode of…The Problem of Algorithmic Bias in Autonomous Vehicles
The common story of automated vehicle safety is that by eliminating human error from the driving equation, cars will act more predictably, fewer crashes will occur, and lives will be saved. That future is still uncertain though. Questions still remain about whether CAVs will truly be safer drivers than humans…