Safe Autonomy

Comprehensive effort by Law Commissions (England, Wales, Scotland) on Automated Vehicle regulations. A lot of work, and some valuable insights. Web site with all documents:    https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/automated-vehicles/ Summary of findings:  https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2022/01/AV-Summary-25-01-22-2.pdf Full report:  https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2022/01/AV-Summary-25-01-22-2.pdf Excerpt from the summary: "Key recommendations Throughout this project, we have strived to keep safety at the forefront of our proposals, while also retaining the flexibility required to accommodate future development. Our recommendations cover initial approval and authorisation of self-driving vehicles, ongoing monitoring of their performance while they are on the road, misleading marketing, and both criminal and civil liability. They include: Writing the test for self-driving into law, with a bright

Kansas has been holding hearings about setting Autonomous Vehicle regulations. The situation provides an interesting, publicly accessible view into what's happening across the US. It also provides an exercise in transparency compared to the process used at about the same time in Pennsylvania. A simplified summary of the Kansas situation: Walmart is using its lobbying weight to expand its "middle mile" automated delivery trials from Arkansas to also include Kansas. The bill is being considered at their request. But they confess the technology is beyond them. Gatik is the Walmart partner doing the heavy lifting here. They tell a plausible story about care and diligence, phased incremental approach, etc., although without mentioning conformance to industry standards. However, regardless of the story they tell, the bill would permit other companies to also operate in the state, so what is in the bill matters beyond Gatik's statements. The proposed bill is short (2 pages)

The Tesla rolling stop discussion continues, with thoughtful people sometimes not sure which way to go on this. Here is a breakdown of the issues... This is a big deal and should be treated as such: It's illegal. Ignoring the law until you get caught is untrustworthy behavior (in this case apparently part of a pattern). Tesla could have and should have worked this out with NHTSA in advance. Then lobbied for regulatory change if needed. Any rule-bending behavior needs to adjust to local conditions and context to be safe-ish, which wasn't done here. Local customs are relevant. Not doing it in school zones, near playgrounds. Etc. These vehicles are not yet competent drivers. They regularly try to hit vehicles and other things they detect (show as detected on screen -- see YouTube). Any statement that they will proceed only when conditions are clear ignores this severe issue that they clearly are not competent judges of when intersections are clear. (Safety driver being responsible

February 1, 2022 FIVE PRINCIPLES FOR REGULATION OF HIGHLY AUTOMATED VEHICLES Philip Koopman∗ & William H. Widen** Providing economic opportunities and jobs is important, but these benefits alone are not an equitable and fair exchange for the use of public highways as a testing ground, and the exposure of the public to an increased risk of harm from highly automated vehicle (HAV) accidents during development. The principles below summarize concrete actions that HAV legislation should include to provide an appropriate balance. Typeset Acrobat version here:  https://archive.org/details/av-regulation-principles-koopman-widen-2022-02-01 1. Safety Operational Safety : commit to a testing and deployment standard for automated driving system (ADS) performance of “substantially better than the average unimpaired human driver ” (AUHD) rather than the vague “sufficiently safe” criteria currently in use by HAV companies. Metrics : state the metric(s) used to make the performance comparison be