Autonomous Vehicles Allowed To Bypass Road Safety Rules?

Everyone is excited about the upcoming self-driving vehicles, and the potential that it holds for the future of driving. There's no doubt that cars are changing, and fast. But are these innovations such as autonomous cars safe? The news has already reported a handful of cases where autonomous vehicles have killed or seriously injured other road users when they did not act as predicted in certain traffic scenarios. Before we completely give up on human control and intervention, we need to be certain that autonomous vehicles will be completely safe and reliable.

However, at least one country is making huge strides to making the fully autonomous self-driving dream possible. In what is a milestone for the autonomous vehicle industry, the United States of America has granted delivery robot company Nuro the first-ever safety approval for its purpose-built self-driving vehicle.

Nuro is most famous for its plans to cart groceries around neighbourhoods via its flagship autonomous vehicle, the R2. It’s The R2 has no steering wheel, pedals or side mirrors as it's designed to be unmanned and carry cargo. Large compartments on its side open up to reveal deliveries, such as groceries or pizza.

With the safety approval by the US Department of Transportation, Nuro is now able to launch up to 5,000 of its R2 autonomous vehicles over the next two years. Nuro is the first company to receive an exemption from the Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, which typically requires cars to have a long list of safety features including airbags and seat belts. The approval indicates that federal regulators at the US Department of Transportation Department believe specially-built robot cars can safely take to the roads without adhering to all the design standards for regular vehicles.

"Since this is a low-speed self-driving delivery vehicle, certain features that the department traditionally required -- such as mirrors and windshield for vehicles carrying drivers -- no longer make sense," said Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

There are, however, a list of strict rules that Nuro will have to follow. The federal approval also carries strict limits. The approval is only valid for 2 years, and Nuro’s autonomous vehicles won’t be allowed to carry any passengers. It also has to adhere to a maximum speed limit of 40km/h, and its production will be capped at 5,000 vehicles on the road only.

Dave Ferguson, one of Nuro’s co-founders said that the R2 is designed to protect pedestrians and programmed to drive courteously, so it’s positioned to become a trustworthy and “socially responsible” user of neighborhood roads.

“Our government has shown that safety and innovation can advance together, and that they will act to address regulations that stand in the way.” he said. “Moving forward, we must modernize the existing regulations that never envisioned a vehicle without a driver or occupants, and everyone in the industry must work to ensure self-driving technology is tested and deployed in the safest possible vehicles.”

As of now, according to a survey taken by the US public, around 15% of the people don’t trust in the safety and the concept of autonomous vehicles. Another 15% stated that they don’t believe that there will ever be an autonomous vehicle on the market, and 42% said they would never ride in a fully automated vehicle. At the crux of it, safety is the key, with over 56% saying that they need to be completely confident in the safety of given by the autonomous vehicles before they will ride.

On the other side of the coin, The Eno Center for Transportation has commented that “driver error is believed to be the main reason behind over 90% of all crashes”, and that replacing traditionally driven cars with autonomous ones could result in far safer road travel.

What do you think about allowing autonomous vehicles to bypass road safety laws? Will there be any long term effects on how drivers should interact with these autonomous cars for the sake of safety? Leave a comment below!