Self-driving prototype cars have attracted new safety guidelines and policies from road safety agencies, urging the states not to authorize such cars for general use.
The self-driving vehicle technology is moving swiftly forward, but it is not likely to get authorization from the states for use in general public anytime soon. Several road safety agencies in the U.S. including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Governors Highway Safety Association and the U.S. Department of Transportation, have voiced their concerns and advised such car making companies to avoid driving these cars on the roads except for testing.
"We believe there are a number of technological issues as well as human performance issues that must be addressed before self-driving vehicles can be made widely available," NHTSA said, USA Today reports. "Self-driving vehicle technology is not yet at the stage of sophistication or demonstrated safety capability that it should be authorized for use by members of the public for general driving purposes."
David Strickland, deputy administrator at the NHTSA, said that the agency must be in control of the situation by implementing new policies "for states, and for the industry, on how to move ahead on their testing programs," as proposed on Thursday. The NHTSA urged the states to go in for further research on self-driving vehicle technology before making it commercially available. It further requested that a special license be required for drivers of self-driving cars and that they sit on the driver's seat to take control of the vehicle any time.
NHTSA has defined different levels for automatic cars from 0 to 4, with 4 being the most automated driverless cars, like the Jetsons' car. The agency defined the Google car as level 3, which means the driver must be ready to take control of the wheel.
"Level 3 is truly in the testing phase and these guidelines are ensuring that the testing is done so it's safe for the driver and safe for everyone else on the road. We want to make sure the drivers in these test vehicles, for instance, have appropriate training," Friedman says. "How does the car warn the driver of the need to take over? How much warning does it give? How does the car interact overall with the person?"
Level 2 cars defined by NHTSA would be driver controlled cars with two or more automated functions such as lane centering and cruise control.
Level 1 cars would be in the driver's control with "function-specific" systems such as stability control to assist the driver. It is one of the systems, which is now federally required. The level 0 cars are the usual cars which are in complete control of the drivers.
Many states including Nevada, California and Florida have approved the testing of self-driving cars. Google has tested Toyota Prius and Lexus RX450h for more than 500,000 miles as a part of the self-driving car test. These cars use cameras, sensors, lasers and computers to drive .
"NHTSA is right telling states to slow down, think this through and don't rush into regulating driverless vehicles until there is more research," said Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association.
While Google is testing its cars for stringent safety standards, its CEO and co-founder, Sergey Brin, said last year, when California passed a law allowing self driven cars that not many years from now Google self driving cars will be available for general use.
