Advertisement
Advertisement
Self-driving cars and autonomous vehicles
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
A Waymo self-driving vehicle is parked outside Google parent Alphabet’s offices in Chandler, Arizona, where tests were being conducted in March of 2018. Photo: Reuters

Autonomous car industry gets a nudge on standards and transparency

  • The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is unveiling an initiative for a nascent industry that seeks to transform how people drive
  • The agency aims to build a website to show the public where autonomous car tests are being held and learn details about how these are conducted

Hundreds of autonomous cars have been tested in locations across the United States in recent years, but standards are inconsistent and in a handful of cases there have been accidents and even a death.

Now, the federal government wants to improve how those tests are conducted and create more transparency for a nascent industry that seeks to transform how people drive.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is unveiling a voluntary initiative on Monday in an attempt to bring together state and local governments along with vehicle makers, such as Alphabet’s Waymo.

“There clearly have been incidents that have demonstrated difficulties in testing and in areas where testing has fallen short of the safety standards that we all expect,” James Owens, deputy administrator of NHTSA, said in an interview.

Waymo gets US$2.25 billion from external investors to fund global expansion in self-driving vehicles

While the legal authority over such tests resides with states and the federal government has no plans to mandate standards, the safety administration intends to build a website to show the public where tests are being held and learn details about how these are conducted, Owens said.

The agency also plans to bring together government officials and the industry so they can share what has worked and what has not, Owens added. It is hosting a one-day symposium on the topic on Monday.

“This is a way to help shed some sunshine, some sunlight on what’s out there,” he said.

Fully autonomous vehicles have the potential to dramatically change road travel and to lower highway deaths from factors such as drunk driving. The vehicles remain works in progress, and government agencies are still attempting to adapt existing regulations to the new designs.

Investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board examine the self-driving vehicle from Uber Technologies that was involved in a fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona, on March 20, 2018. Photo: Reuters

NHTSA’s vision for improving testing of such vehicles falls short of recommendations issued last November by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The safety board found multiple failures in how Uber Technologies conducted tests of a prototype self-driving vehicle in Tempe, Arizona. The Uber vehicle struck and killed a woman in 2018. Its sensors had failed to properly detect the woman, who was jaywalking as she pushed her bicycle across a road. A safety driver in the vehicle was distracted and did not brake in time.

The safety agency issued two recommendations to NHTSA to tighten control of such testing by requiring entities to submit safety assessments and to monitor them.

03:06

China’s self-driving RoboTaxi hits the road

China’s self-driving RoboTaxi hits the road

In a March 6 letter to the NTSB, Owens said his agency shares concerns over how testing is conducted, but it believes a voluntary approach “is the best and quickest way to advance the shared goals of public transparency and safety”.

NHTSA is also preparing to release later this year a preliminary outline of possible regulations that would set safety principles for autonomous vehicles, Owens said in the interview.

“We definitely want to make sure, first and foremost, that whatever innovation is occurring, that safety is baked into product design and safety is baked into the testing of the product,” he said.

Post