Three prominent automakers announced this week the formation of a partnership to help create regulations and safety standards for autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the U.S.
GM, Ford and Toyota are partnering with the automotive engineering group SAE International to launch the Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium (AVSC), in order to establish safety guiding principles to help inform standards of development for self-driving cars.
The AVSC notes on their website that all three automakers are actively involved in the testing and on-road pilots of automated vehicles. In addition, SAE International is part of an effort to establish safety and testing principles focused on the safe deployment of SAE Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous driving systems.
AVSC recognizes the need to establish safety principles for the operation of AVs. The goal of the consortium's work will be to inform and accelerate industry-wide safety standards for AV systems in order to earn public trust with the continued deployment of AV pilots. The safety principles emphasized by AVSC include making sure there are proper systems in place for testing, ongoing interaction between people and the systems, as well as the collection, protection, and sharing of data.
The consortium notes that the confidence of the public and their acceptance of AVs is crucial to the technology's success, including in their testing and deployment on public roads. Gaining that trust may prove difficult to obtain, as a recent survey conducted by AAA revealed that roughly 71% of Americans still fear riding in fully self-driving vehicles. Additionally, AVs have made headlines in the past few years over their involvement in multiple traffic crashes.
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Source: Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium
