Part 18 - Today is the beginning of the rest of your life

I know I spoke of this in the last blog but it is a significant event and needs to be looked at in more depth.

Last week the first person died in a vehicle that was driving itself.

Lets start by saying that any death for whatever reason is lamentable.

Suprisingly, the fact that a vehicle was being driven autonomously and caused a death has not started a backlash as the pundits had forecast.

Why is that?

The simple answer is that it wasn't an autonomous car in the first place. It was a great car with a lot of driver assist features that are available within the vehicle to be used in test mode with the drivers full attention, ready to take control.

The driver apparently was using it as an autonomous vehicle, having gained confidence in its features over a period of time - which may have generated a lethal overconfidence when a situation occurred that was outside its capabilities and the driver failed to notice.

The official enquiry will bring out the facts so any speculation at this point is really futile.

Many cars on the road currently have similar features with different systems and sensors all looking at the world differently.

One fact that is indisputable is that this technology is not ready to allow it to be used exclusively as an autonomous vehicle and Tesla is quick to point out that fact.

Unfortunately, if a progressive development model is rolled out over time with more and more driver assist features which still rely on the driver to be awake and aware then that creates a whole new problem.

Imagine you're driving on a long trip and the the road is long, straight and extremely boring, a common scenario in a place like Western Australia where I live, where it can be many hundred of miles - between trees, and even further between towns with the only thing to break the monotony is the odd kangaroo or emu.

But what if the kangaroo or emu decides it wants to occupy the same space on the road as you do at the same time? (not the brightest animals in the world, think "shiny thing, lets check it out").
The semi autonomous vehicle says Oh Oh, I don't know how to handle this and throws its virtual hands in the air and screams ITS YOURS!

What happens?

The driver could take a very long time, in high speed travel terms to go from semi comatose to alert, and by then it could be too late for the driver and most certainly for the emu.

So a case can be made for going directly to fully autonomous vehicles but that in itself creates a whole new set of problems.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that fully autonomous vehicles will be on sale and on the road in 2020 and many others will be offering level two or three vehicles which leads to the problem just mentioned.

That is less than 4 years from now and, as per a lot of countries, we are not ready!

So what does that mean for users?

A very good question as there are, as yet, no industry standards, no federal and very limited state regulation in Australia, and very little anywhere else.

So that means if standards are not set for the use of these features are they legal to use?

Within Australia a driver has to be in control at all times under current law, so what are the implications for using a vehicle in autonomous mode? Worse still what will be the consequences if a vehicle is sold as fully autonomous and someone is killed when the law has not been changed.

All of the above means that the vehicles on sale in many places will have to have controls built in to prevent the full use of autonomous features on the road and to put the onus back on to the driver until such times as the law changes, Mercedes are doing this now.

So that begs the question of what needs to be done to get ready for the future today?

First and foremost we need a legal definition of what defines an autonomous vehicle and that needs to be based on standards that can be measured and quantified such as:

1. Standards for the minimum number of sensors required and their location.
2. Standards for the types of sensors required.
3. Standards to define the minimum sensor range of the sensors fitted.
4. Testing scenarios via NATA and/or  ANCAP to determine the efficiency and reliability of the systems.
5. Law changes to allow drivers to be hands off, with the above criteria met.
6. Insurance companies to allow claims against collision when in autonomous mode.

There are undoubtedly many more but these are the first that spring to mind. 

And remember, we have less that 4 years to do it all before the tech hits and starts being used seriously.

On the same theme, Volvo has reaffirmed that it will take "full responsibility for the operation and efficacy of its autopilot technologies" for their autonomous cars when they hit the road.

This will remove the onus from the driver and put it on Volvo provided the vehicle is used in accordance with the manufacturer and the currents law.

Now that's a level of confidence that you really want to see when you're sitting in a ton and a half of metal hurtling down the road with a computer in control and it also gives the emus a fighting chance.

BMW has also set 2021 as the launch date for their fully autonomous vehicle as well with a new partnership with chip maker Intel to supply the processing power and Mobileye technology for the software.

The future is here, nearly, sort of, maybe.