This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

One man dies with Tesla Autopilot turned on and there'south talk of scaling back autonomous driving. Google is said to have jumped straight to work on Level 4 self-driving, the highest level (where cars wouldn't fifty-fifty demand a steering wheel), because drivers at lower levels of autonomous have shown their inability to stay attentive. It'due south possible safety zealots and regulators seek to reign in self-driving cars. That'due south unnecessary.

Here are five things automakers, regulators, motorcar dealers, and drivers can practice to brand self-driving safer. Otherwise, we risk losing the very real advantages of partial self-driving, such as adaptive cruise command (ACC) and lane centering assist (LCA) that can be soothing on big city highway commutes and brain amplifiers on long, tiring vacation trips.

1. Make the time-out ten-fifteen seconds, non ii-three minutes

Cars today with adaptive cruise command and lane centering assist, perchance with blind spot detection and forward emergency braking, are effectively self-driving on interstates, until they meet a situation they tin can't handle. They require the driver to have his or her hands lightly on the bike. Take them off, the motorcar senses it, sounds a warning beep subsequently ten-fifteen seconds, and disables lane centering assist most 5 seconds later. Some automakers fix the timeout to a minute or more, enough time to clamber in the dorsum seat and make a YouTube video, or for the average driver to really lose attending and possibly nod off.

If the timeout is xv seconds, that'due south plenty. It'south plenty to plug in your smartphone, turn around, and grab a bag from the back seat (not that you should) or blazon a quick text (not that you should).

2. Brainwash owners on what self-bulldoze cars can't do

"Tesla Autopilot" is a not bad marketing phrase, but it promises more that it delivers (for now), fifty-fifty if Tesla appends the word "beta." What's needed is not an possessor lawsuit charging false promises, but a serious automaker / auto dealer training program for buyers, and their families, that explains all technology features of their new cars: the cockpit controllers (BMW iDrive, Audi MMI, Mercedes-Benz Comand), the LCDs and navigation systems, and the alphabet soup that makes upwardly assisted driving: ACC, AEB, BSD, and LDA/LKA/LCA.

Here's the problem: Motorcar dealer sales forces accept no clue, by and large speaking, what they're selling when it comes to technology. If they understood technology, they'd be employed somewhere else that didn't require working lx-hr weeks to earn $50,000. Some automakers have created regional geek squads to educate the sales forces who educate the consumers; some dealers designate ane or two smart guys to explicate tech (until they get hired away elsewhere). Give the buyer a $fifty accessories department gift card for sitting through the training (carrot, not stick). Back that upward with online videos and embedded videos that play in the car (when it's stopped) for continuing teaching. Information technology'southward a first.

General Motors

Blend camera and radar to track cut-in cars

When the driver in an adjacent lane cuts into your lane, it takes adaptive cruise command most a second to lock in on the intruder and ho-hum your car. This can be a scary moment for driver and passengers, and it'south hard to drive fifty miles on the highway without information technology happening.

The camera in the windshield that handles lane keep help as well as (some cars) auto high beams and forward collision alarm could runway cars ahead of you in next lanes. Information technology could work with a centralized controller and ACC to get the car braking a couple fractions of a second earlier. This would raise a motorcar from Level 1 democratic driving, meaning one or more driver assists working on their ain, to Level two, which calls for multiple driver assists — especially ACC and LCA — that work together. For the side by side couple years, that's what drivers really want and will find useful for highway commuting (treatment finish and go traffic while staying in lane) and the occasional all-day trips where it'due south hard to pay attention.

Add drowsy driver warnings

Information technology's normal for your attention to wander if the car helps with driving. Only until cars go to the next level, where you get plenty fourth dimension to resume decision-making the car (say x seconds to a minute), yous have to stay more-or-less warning. Drowsy driver monitors can aid. Originally conceived as a complex system with cameras and middle movement tracking, sometimes also measuring breathing and heartbeat, automakers accept institute they can runway driver attention past tracking micro-adjustments people brand when driving, as long as their hands are on the bicycle. The car also tracks events such every bit drifting out of lane, which lane centering assist will catch.

With i technology or the other, the car should be able to take hold of a driver on the verge of drifting off. So the car sounds an alert and suggests a coffee break. Researchers have too experimented with Let'southward Play a Game, where the auto vocalism module asks the driver questions and listens for response via speech-to-text conversion. That can proceed the driver going for another hour or and then. It'southward a possible antidote to inattention.

Inattentive drivers is one reason Google back in 2013 went straight to working on driver-free cars: Drivers don't remain vigilant and lack the "situational awareness" to quickly return to full attention.

Freightliner; Daimler Trucks; Daimler; Daimler Trucks North America; DTNA; autonomous driving; autonomous; autonomous vehicle; licensed; street legal; autonomes Fahren; autonom; zugelassen; Nevada; Las Vegas; USA; Inspiration Truck; Inspiration

Prepare the infrastructure

In the 1990s program, self-driving cars and trucks would follow embedded transponders in a limited access roadway. Now the motorcar orients itself on any roadway based on visual recognition of nearby cars, traffic signs, and well-nigh of all, roadway markings. They all need to be kept in good status, specially the lane markings. What's marginal on a clear twenty-four hours can't exist read in the rain at night by the auto'southward lane centering assist camera (or by most drivers, for that matter). Some cars get speed limit cues from road signs, but just if they're readable. Potholes force drivers to swerve, and that endangers a self-driving car nearby. Potholes as well cost individual drivers more in tire, cycle, and suspension harm than information technology costs the land to fix the potholes for everyone.

The money is in that location, in the form of auto registration fees and state and federal gasoline taxes. Problem is, much of it has been siphoned off to other parts of authorities budgets, and now needs to be recaptured.