Editorial

The details and cost of the Biden Administration's $1.2-trillion ($555 billion in new spending) federal infrastructure bill may have been exhaustively debated by the time it was passed last November, but few could argue that substantial investment in the nation's systems wasn't long overdue. I feel no shame in admitting I didn't deeply examine its 2,700 pages (most lawmakers didn't either), but many have speculated on what the bill may portend for AV development.

A particular area of interest is the provision to “advance” drunk- and impaired-driving prevention with some kind of passive technology. Nobody yet knows exactly what that technology might be, but it's probable that any effective design will be based on, or collaborate with, some of today's advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and higher-level automation development. New federal investment funds flowing to automakers, suppliers and other innovators is likely to hasten engineering of driver assistance and automation on many fronts - impaired-driving prevention is just going to be one of the more high-profile efforts.