Thursday, September 28, 2017

September 2017 SDADA Column

As I write this, Senator Thune and the Senate Commerce Committee are preparing legislation to advance self-driving vehicles or Highly Automated Vehicles (HAVs). As dealers, our concern is that this legislation could preempt certain state laws including our South Dakota franchise law.

While Congress seeks uniform regulation of self-driving vehicles to avoid a state patchwork that would hamper deployment of these vehicles, Congress must also ensure that the states’ traditional role to regulate motor vehicle commerce within its borders is preserved as applied to self-driving vehicles.

On Sept. 6, the House approved H.R. 3388, the “SELF DRIVE Act” by voice vote.  Bipartisan language to clarify that Congress does not intend to preempt state vehicle licensing/franchise laws as applied to self-driving vehicles was included in the bill.

The Senate Commerce Committee must ensure that their legislation explicitly preserves state vehicle licensing and franchise laws as well. Hopefully, by the time you read this, we will have crossed this threshold without incident.

NADA will be watching to ensure state laws are protected!

Friday, September 1, 2017

You Scratch my Back

Our last family pet, Repo, an English Springer Spaniel, had this annoying habit of picking up the gray landscape rocks around our house and carrying them out into the middle of the yard and dropping them. Of course, this made mowing the yard hazardous because those rocks became missiles when the mower ran over one of them.

We had rocks go through two different windows and the homeowners insurance carrier even threatened to drop us because of that (don't even get me started on that!).

I had never really watched Repo long enough to understand why he would do such a stupid thing. I attributed it to his constant need for something in his mouth.

One day, after returning from a productive day afield, we were cleaning pheasants out in the yard and one of my fellow hunters was watching Repo take a rock from near the house out to the middle of the yard. He asked me about that habit and I dropped a few choice words indicating my disapproval of the habit and went back to the ringneck at hand.

Shortly thereafter, he was marveling at what a smart dog Repo was. I suggested that he might have gotten into the barley pop a bit early. He pointed out that Repo was rolling on the rock he had deposited in the yard, scratching his back blissfully.

As I watched, it was true. I walked over, grabbed the rock and deposited it next to the house in its intended spot.

A few minutes later, Repo had snatched another rock and was laying on his back, squirming away, driving the rock between the shoulders blades, where apparently, the itch was just too much to handle.

Learning the reason behind the annoying habit didn't make me like it any better - but at least I understood!

"This one should REALLY do the trick!"