I have seen two stories come across the ‘net regarding autonomous vehicles. Both breathlessly claim that AV’s will be launched virtually any minute now, but the launch is being stalled by the lack of government regulation. One article is from Australia, the other from the UK.
Can someone explain what I’m missing here? Either technology has moved light years ahead of the US in the UK and Oz, or someone somewhere is beginning to believe their own press.
These regulations are needed, the articles say, to sort out the problem of who will be at fault when an AV is involved in a crash that is its fault. In other words, who do you sue. It is the responsibility of the owner of the vehicle, the person in the vehicle, the manufacturer of the vehicle, the creator of the software and hardware that guides the vehicle (two or more different companies) the government agency that supplies the roads (properly marked and delineated for the AVs), the communications network that allows the AV to ‘talk’ to surrounding vehicles and its cloud, or some or all of the above.
What about the 15 year old kid that hacked into the AV and caused the accident because he was upset with his folks for …..pick one of a hundred reasons.
Not that I believe that our betters in Washington or 50 state capitals can craft legislation that will solve the above problem at one go. It will take many tries before the insurance companies are sure they are protected and they can get their pound of flesh from the right entity before they pay off.
Its easy now. If my car tail ends yours, I’m at fault. Period. My insurance company pays and then cancels my insurance. We all understand that. There is also a percentage of blame. After sorting out the police report, some of the fault could be mine, some the other poor schnook who didn’t’ press ‘send’ soon enough on his last text.
However, who is to blame for a ‘net failure, or a dirty sensor, or the software that wasn’t quite ‘there’ yet.
All that aside, do the folks Down Under or on that ‘Sceptered Isle” really believe that AVs are going to be pervasive enough to care.
OK – I can see commercial use — long haul trucks, UPS and Fedex, Uber and Lyft in limited areas, Pizza delivery (maybe not so much), within the next few years. But can you really believe that the next time you buy a car you will have to decide “AV or Not.”
I don’t think so. They are still trying to teach them how to make left turns against oncoming traffic and see cars that are painted white or is it black.
Then I looked at the source of the two articles. In both cases, they were from the AV industry.
Nuff Said.
JVH
