Manufacturers are struggling to realize safe public road test driving of automatic driving cars

Waymo, an automatic driving car development company spun out from Google, revealed that a collision accident occurred during the public road test of the automatic driving car. Manufacturers developing automatic driving cars seem to be in the midst of experiencing the suffering of birth by the time automated driving cars said to be able to drive safely than human drivers spread.

Waymo's self-driving car crashed because of its human driver fell asleep - Quartz
https://qz.com/1410928/waymos-self-driving-car-crashed-because-its-human-driver-fell-asleep/

It was first reported by The Infomation that Waymo's autopilot car accident happened on California's highway in June 2018. At that time, the driver who was testing the automatic driving car was the sole driver, drowsiness was attacked by the driver during the test and it was in a state of being put out, accidentally touching the accelerator pedal, the automatic operation mode was canceled It is a cause. When the automatic operation mode was canceled, a number of warning devices such as an alarm sounded to inform the driver of it were installed, but the driver did not respond to any alarm.

Although the Waymo car collided with the median strip and stopped, there was no big injury to the driver and it seems that light damages such as "moderate damage to tires and bumpers" seems to have been completed. Also, although the accident site was on the highway, fortunately at the time of the accident, there were no cars running around and it did not lead to major damage.

In this case, public road running test was carried out with one driver, but the safety measures are different depending on the manufacturer developing the automatic driving car. Automobile manufacturers such as Toyota, Ford, Nissan, etc. are basically tested on a two-person trip test. On the other hand, Waymo who caused the accident this time and Uber who caused a fatal accident, the driver was carrying out a test run by one person.

Uber's automated driving car crashes a woman and kills an accident, Uber ceased road test on automatic driving - GIGAZINE

The driver who caused the accident at Waymo was attacked by drowsiness, but Uber's driver knows that he was watching a streaming movie bored bored at the time of the accident.

Uber's driver who let the pedestrian die was watching video streaming at a smartphone at the time of the accident - GIGAZINE

In a test run with an automated driving car, human drivers will not lower their hands except when in an emergency, so it is a serious problem that the ability to concentrate is interrupted. Waymo is planning to stop the decline in concentration during automatic driving by adopting the change to make the driver of two people at the time of running test of the automatic driving car in response to this accident.

Uber also discontinued many of the public road tests that had been done in Pittsburgh and San Francisco in the US, and thus dismissed a large number of employees hired for testing. Instead, Uber switched to a policy to hire special trained specialists who watch the car on the test course and is looking for talented persons who can carry out their duties without themselves .

All companies developing automatic driving cars understand that "human beings are not good drivers" and that the spread of automatic driving cars should significantly reduce traffic accidents that kill more than 1 million people per year He said he has a common recognition. However, the road to establishing technology is steep and seems to be heading towards the goal, despite unavoidable sacrifice.

As automated driving technology increases and practical use approaches, another problem is also being closely up. It is said that when an era where automatic driving cars become popular and everyone rely on it comes, the experience of driving by grasping the steering wheel by themselves gets steadily and there is a high possibility that human beings can not deal with in an emergency that automatic driving does not work It seems to be a problem called paradox of automation (automation paradox) .