It is almost universally accepted that one of the key aspects to the proliferation of self-driving vehicles is getting the cars safe enough to give the public confidence in the technology.
A recent survey by AAA showed that not only is consumer confidence in self-driving cars very low, but it actually got worse from 2017 to 2018. Much of this fear stems from the death of a pedestrian following a collision with an Uber autonomous test car last year and some other high profile accidents that also took place.
Because of these incidents, safety has become a priority for automotive OEMs and one of the results of this is a new consortium being formed by Ford Motors, General Motors, Toyota Motors and SAE International.
The Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium (AVSC) will work to develop safety and testing principles focused on the safe deployment of Level 4 and Level 5 automated driving systems.
The AVSC will provide a safety framework around autonomous technology so that vehicles will be able to deploy with confidence. The goal is to accelerate the development of industry standards for self-driving cars and work with other consortiums and standards throughout the world.
“Being able to advance the safe deployment of SAE Level 4 and Level 5 automated vehicles represents another exciting chapter in the realization of autonomous mobility and the benefits this will bring to people around the world,” said Edward Straub, DM, executive director of the AVSC. “To achieve these benefits, industry collaboration, cohesion and flexibility to merge new ideas with proven safety processes are critical. This is why we are forming the AVSC and announcing our roadmap strategy.”
Additionally, the consortium’s current and future members will establish a set of autonomous vehicle safety guiding principles to help with standards development. The next step is to establish a roadmap of priorities that is intended to be applicable for developers, manufacturers and integrators of automated vehicle technology and focuses on data sharing, vehicle interaction with other road users and safe testing guidelines.
