By Clay Reiferson — How do we weigh the value of the lives of future generations against the people of today? In the United States, federal and state governments are left to ponder this question as they seek to regulate the burgeoning self-driving car industry. It is widely accepted that, by removing human error, self-driving cars will offer a safer alternative to human-driven ones. Proponents of rapid innovation in the field point to the fact that 94 percent of all crashes, which account for over 30,000 US deaths per year, can be attributed to human error. As such, the faster we can achieve a reality dominated by high-level Automated Driving Systems (ADSs), the better off future generations will be. But rapid innovation comes at a cost—one the country saw for the first time in 2018. In an effort to accelerate the pace of innovation and create a safer transportation system for future generations, Arizona elected to adopt a loose regulatory framework surrounding ADSs. This decision flushed automakers who wished to test their self-driving vehicles out of neighboring California, whose legislators took a more stringent regulatory position. One such testing vehicle belonged to Uber, and would go on to tragically kill Elaine Herzberg on a public Arizona roadway in what marked the first fatal self-driving car accident. Herzberg’s death raised two pressing legislative debates: should the regulation of ADSs remain a state-led issue? And what changes, if any, should our lenient federal regulatory system undergo to prevent similar tragedies?