After a self-driving Uber car killed an Arizona woman, the state was able to suspend Uber from further testing since it had previously addressed how to handle driverless cars. Thank goodness it didn’t happen here, because New Hampshire law does not address driverless cars.
House Bill 314 would have established rules, notifications and a permit process for testing driverless cars here, and would have created the authority to suspend them if they prove dangerous or fail to comply with our rules. Remember, they are already here. We know some have driven up Interstate 95, and we also know that some tech companies have run them in other New Hampshire cities. We don’t know the full scope because they are not required to tell us. Having a responsible framework to protect public safety is important and HB314 would have provided it.
Unfortunately, the New Hampshire Senate killed the bill by replacing it with a commission to talk about the issue.
After the fatal crash, some manufacturers voluntarily suspended testing. Ford and General Motors, however, announced that they would not change their plans, and BMW announced it will double the size of its driverless fleet. In 2016, there was a fatal crash involving a Tesla on “autopilot.” Tesla recently decided to stop cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board in the investigation. Clearly, some oversight is needed.
The House bill was the result of meetings and consultations with federal and state transportation officials and industry professionals. I worked on it for more than two years, and the House Transportation Committee and student researchers from Dartmouth College worked on it for a year. After a short hearing and no talks at all with the House, the Senate decided none of it is necessary. Please contact your state senators and ask them not to pursue this reckless policy. We should have a say when New Hampshire motorists and drivers are being used as test subjects.
Rep. Steven Smith
Charlestown
The writer is the chairman of the New Hampshire House Transportation Committee.
Why are we not shocked or even curious about Mike Pompeo’s gloating revelation recently that American bombing on Feb. 7 killed 200-300 Russian irregulars under the aegis of the Kremlin intelligence agency GRU in a firefight over control of the Syrian oil fields at Deir Ezzor? Apparently the relentless Russophobic campaign conducted by our war party over the past decade has inured most of us to the monstrous premise that the only good Russian is a dead one and we must now accept the possibility of more bloody military clashes on a scale unthinkable during Cold War I.
We should not be surprised that these chest-thumping displays of bellicosity in Washington are prompting equally provocative responses from those in Moscow. One crucial item overlooked during the latest standoff in Syria over the alleged use of chemical weapons is that Putin early on ordered his armed forces into “full battle preparedness,” which at least on paper meant that weapons capable of turning Western Europe into one big kill-zone and obliterating the U.S. mainland were on the highest state of alert.
The most ominous blip coming out of this nuclear saber-rattling was Russia’s targeting of its Kalibr cruise missiles at American bases in Syria. The Russian high command was effectively announcing, through this act of brinkmanship, that it was taking hostage our 2,000 troops based in Syria. If Washington went ahead with the massive strikes originally envisaged and killed an unspecified number of the 2,000 Russian military personnel on the ground, Moscow would respond by annihilating U.S. bases at Deir Ezzor. This dangerous bluff may explain why Washington suddenly discovered a healthy respect for the Russian military to protect its own and dialed back its announced show of force to another pinprick operation that averted for the moment an explosive escalation. Still, this turn of events was just one more roll of the dice in a reckless and combustible imperial crapshoot that could well end up writing the self-destructive epitaph for our failed species.
Patrick Flaherty
Hanover
A report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School zeroes in on the increasing ease with which politicians are targeting members of the judiciary when a court issues an opinion with which they disagree. Although President Donald Trump has led by example on this front, much of the reckless behavior is attributable to state legislators and is aimed at members of their own state courts.
The attacks have taken various forms. One state has sought to impeach the “offending” justices; others have tried to narrow or terminate the authority of the court to rule on certain matters (education funding, for example); others are seeking legislative amendments to reduce the length of judicial terms or require fewer justices on a particular court, thus preventing the opposing party from filling open spots on the bench.
The dynamics of these insidious interventions serve to politicize the courts and chip away at respect for the judicial branch, the rule of law and judicial independence. Bottom line: They offend the essence of the core element in our governmental structure, the separation of powers. The report cites 16 states currently involved in what is referred to as “legislative assault on state courts.” At this point, none of the New England states are among the 16. As we move toward the November midterm elections, our candidates for state and federal offices should be aware that we wish to keep it that way.
Sheila R. Shulman
Grantham
Let us not be lesser in stature than our children.
I’ve listened to Emma Gonzalez speak at the March For Our Lives rally against gun violence in Washington, D.C. I did not, at her age nor at the age of any of the young people who spoke, have that courage and grace. I have, since reaching an age of maturity (rather later than any of them), tried to do right and make some slight difference for the good. I haven’t done enough, and nor have any of us.
It is time, now, for any of us who call ourselves grownups and claim to love our children, to stop asking to be heard and to use the only real weapon we have — our economic power — to make it impossible not to be heard.
Sustained boycotts always work. Let us withhold our money from any company that supports the National Rifle Association until sensible people take back its leadership; let us withhold our money from any company that supports legislators who are cravenly beholden to the NRA.
Let us deserve to be the parents of our good and wise children.
Sarah Crysl Akhtar
Lebanon