DECEMBER 8, 2021
The Danger in Automated Driving of Autonomous Cars
How dangerous is the automated driving of ADS cars?
Automated driving or "self-driving" cars are known by the acronym ADS (automated driving systems). There have been a substantial number of accidents with autonomous cars. In 2021 a Tesla was being driven by ADS and the two passengers were killed. Neither passenger was at the wheel when the Tesla went out of control and ran off the road.
The human element of allowing the automated driving system to take over the wheel must not be overlooked. As technology for motor vehicles automation progresses, drivers will reduce their attention to the dangers and hazards on the road.
Technology and the increase in car accidents
Car accident lawyers who study the increase in accidents in 2021 attribute this to distracted drivers allowing Google Maps, Apple Maps and many other tech to take over the brain of the drivers.
Many scientists have studied the effect of using GPS systems in phones and cars as it relates to humans' ability to perform spatial navigation. Some believe that the more that humans rely on autonomous cars the more likely it will lead to a deterioration of the brain. This takes place in the region of the hippocampus. As you stop using your brain to perform navigation, and this requires spatial reasoning, a likely decline in brain activity will develop.
In a number of car crashes, the Bull Attorneys take depositions of the defendant drivers and often we find the reason for the crash is that a driver was distracted. All too often the driver is looking down after hearing a command from a phone or GPS. The driver may have bluetooth radio paired which alerts them to take action, they involuntarily look for the phone to give a visual of what they heard. Next thing we learn is the driver is in a severe car crash. In other words, drivers turn off their brains and let the autonomous device work for us, and this is at great risk.
Computers and Software increasing dangers in human drivers
There is little doubt as automated driving systems and technologies evolve, drivers will turn over more and more of their brain to the computers and GPS guidance systems. The less the driver uses the mapping area of the brain the more dangerous the driver becomes.
As Tesla, Mercedes, Audi and other car manufacturers race to see who can build the first truly autonomous vehicle, accidents will rise. Humans will turn off their instinct to survive and let the self-driving cars take over for them. Crashes resulting in injury and death will occur. Automated driving is dangerous for early adopters in considering the human element.
It is clear that self-driving or autonomous vehicles will be dangerous and cause thousands of car and truck crashes.
Can Self driving cars cause death from accidents
Many people recall the Arizona accident with a self-driving vehicle with the Uber driver reading while the car drove into a lady crossing the street. The braking sensory was causing hard braking, they disabled it instead of resolving it. This resulted in the first death from an automated self driving car. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident root cause and blamed Uber for having an inadequate safety culture. The problem is caused by profit seeking businesses who place profit above the safety of the public. Sadly, the race for profits to be the first company to build a truly autonomous car will be at the cost of thousands of lives.
The National Transportation Safety Board and NHTSA have been studying the standards and regulations for autonomous vehicles. As of 2021, at least five studies have been performed by these two agencies. These government agencies have a conflicting thought process that causes danger to all drivers. The belief that 94% of all vehicle crashes are due to human error resulting in the reduction of standards. These standards have taken years to obtain. This is done by granting exemptions to federal regulations.
Lobbyists for car manufacturers that make autonomous vehicles are pushing congress for more lenient safety standards under the guise of setting up a set of best practices for the companies to follow.
Best practices for the car and insurance industry are self-monitored protocols that sound great in theory. The problem is that without regulation and enforcement, best practices mean nothing. The only thing that enforces best practices are trial lawyers who bring lawsuits to prove that the best practices were not followed.
What does the 2021 NHTSA Standing General Order require?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a Standing General Order in 2021 to combat this. This order went out to over 100 autonomous technology and vehicle manufacturing companies. It requires developers to report certain accidents on any automatic self-driven vehicle. This order breaks down the tech into the ADS and Level 2 ADAS.
In a nutshell, the Standing General Order grants oversight to the NHTSA to study causes of vehicle crashes caused by design defects in vehicles using ADS or Level 2 ADAS. Now autonomous technology and/or car manufacturing companies notify the NHTSA of crashes involving drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists who are injured or die from self-driving vehicles. This order includes vehicles using safety technology like automatic braking, or automatic lane control.
The NHTSA will obtain information on airbag deployment, vehicles being towed, hospitalizations, injuries, deaths and other criteria to study how safety these new systems are.
This new reporting requirement makes these companies report within one day of the date that the company learns of the crash. This new Order from the NHTSA will remain in effect over a three-year period from 2021 to 2024.
United States Government regulators categorization of autonomous vehicles causing crashes
The 2021 Standing General Order of the NHTSA creates 6 categories of automation technology for vehicles in order to study their cause and effect with motor vehicle crashes. The six areas categories are discussed below.
Level 0. No Automation. This is where humans manually drive a vehicle.
Level 1. Driver Assistance. This is where a car or truck only has one ADS system in place like cruise control or mirror recognition of approaching vehicles about to pass.
Level 2. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. This is known as ADAS. Technology can take over the vehicle and stop it when approaching a sudden stopped vehicle to help avoid a crash or has similar technology.
Level 3. Conditional Driving Automation. This technology requires some human interaction, but the vehicle can perform driving tasks like acceleration to pass, deceleration to stop, or steering for the driver to avoid a crash. The human driver can take over and override the car at any time.
Level 4. High Driving Automation. This is a significant difference from the other levels and can override human error and drive in a self-driving mode. This is not widely used and is presently for vehicles that are ride sharing vehicles. It has many limits on geographic location, speed and other safety criteria to avoid too many crashes.
Level 5. Full Driving Automation. These are futuristic vehicles that have no human driver to oversee the driving of the vehicle. As of 2021 these are only in test stages and not available for the public to purchase.
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