Safety Metrics for Autonomous Vehicles
Recently one of the governors for the US National Transportation Safety Board opined that the absence of regulations for the operation of autonomous vehicles on the public roads was a significant hurdle to the commercial utilisation of AVs. The US Secretary of Transportation recently announced voluntary standards for those operating AVs on the public roads. Known as “AV 4.0,” the measure has received criticism for the lack of mandatory standards.
At the same time, some within the AV industry are calling for safety metrics by which AVs operating on the public roads should be judged. The impetus for developing safety metrics arises because the safety of the road-going public is paramount and the governing agencies seem not to possess the necessary skills to understand and/or regulate the AV sector with respect to the testing and commercialization of AVs.
Governing agencies, deeming an intersection or railroad crossing dangerous, typically regulate after accidents. For the AV sector, only one fatal accident has occurred. The lessons from it, however, have yet to be learned sufficiently such that safety and innovation can be partners in serving the road-going public instead of adversaries. Pushing boundaries is typically the province of innovators, but a hands-off regulatory approach is not a proven method of promoting safety.
From this vantage point, it appears that the safety of the road-going public is like a tennis ball batted to and fro at the Australian Open with governing agencies swatting with racquets strung with voluntary standards providing a backspin on safety and AV titans volleying with racquets strung with innovation producing a top-spin of promise. Littering the arena are papers detailing the safety failures of the past. Throughout the match Accountability and his partner, Redundant Systems, seek to gain the attention of both players to stop playing with their child, ‘safety,’ and to begin playing with another tennis ball – one called, ‘cooperation.’
Advocating for innovative AV regulation that links safety and the commercial utilisation of AVs represents one of the most significant challenges to bringing AVs on to the public roads for testing and then, eventually, into everyday use. And yet, this advocacy, some may allege, finds its corollary in Cervantes’ classic imagery of ‘tilting at windmills.’ If the criticism fits, I can accept it. If the criticism is off-the-mark, then solving this conundrum through the development of AV safety metrics just may represent a path forward in advancing the future of transportation.
