The inevitable roll-out of driverless vehicles on Australian roads is expected to result in fewer crashes, injuries, and insurance claims. A major roadblock to the launch, however, could very well be humans, a new study suggested.
The Austroads analysis said driverless or automated vehicles would improve road safety and reduce accidents – a view shared by the Insurance Commission of WA (ICWA) – but also cited several limitations that needed to be addressed before the new technology could officially hit the Australian roads.
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The study identified the difficult-to-anticipate human factors as the biggest limitation to the widespread implementation of driverless vehicles, which include drivers' over-reliance or failure to trust the technology and the potential loss of driving skills, which could be dangerous if drivers had to resume control in case of automation failure,
PerthNow reported.
“It was thought that once automated technologies are shown to work reliably public adoption will be rapid, although the infrastructure required to support highly automated driving will not be available for all conditions and locations,” the report said.
The report said different automation technologies require different infrastructure. A technology to stop cars from straying out of lanes, for example, requires highly visible lane markings.
“At higher levels of automation, digital infrastructure such as more accurate positioning, high definition 3-D road mapping, and cellular network coverage were identified as early system limitations,” Austroads wrote. “A new policy and legal framework is also required before the widespread deployment of higher levels of automated driving can be achieved.”
Main Roads WA, one of the road-making agencies that fund Austroads, indicated in an annual report tabled in state parliament this month that there was continuing work in preparation for driverless cars.
The agency said the arrival of driverless cars was more likely considering the trials being implemented around the world, including RAC's Intellibus and Curtin University’s Kip bus. This, in turn, has resulted to Australia “collectively trying to remove obstacles from this autonomous future,” PerthNow reported.
In an annual report tabled this month, ICWA said some legal issues also needed to be considered before the introduction of autonomous vehicles.
“Currently, human drivers assume liability for most motor vehicle crashes,” the ICWA report said. “However, in an autonomous vehicle crash, the human driver may not be in control of the autonomous driving system and therefore may not be liable. Legal responsibility for technical failures and personal injury insurance are fundamental considerations in the development of policy for the introduction of autonomous vehicles. Some autonomous vehicle manufacturers have confirmed they will accept full liability whenever one of its cars is in autonomous mode.”
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