The NHTSA: A Stance on Automated Vehicle Safety Frameworks
The United States Department of Transportation released Automated Driving Systems: A Vision for Safety 2.0 (ADS 2.0) in September 2017 an updated version of the Federal Automated Vehicle Policy of 2016, that serves as a non-regulatory guideline for technology safety in the development, testing and subsequent deployment of automated vehicles. Given the exciting prospects this evolutionary technological advancement presents, it is paramount that the NHTSA’s efforts to support innovation be in line with its mission to “save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce the economic costs of roadway crashes through education, research, safety standards, and enforcement activity. With the recent dispute concerning Mobileye’s Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS) and Nvidia’s Safety Force Field (SFF), we are faced with questions concerning appropriate approaches to developing safety frameworks.
Transparency should be a guiding principle
The NHTSA supports the idea of communication and collaboration between different entities involved in autonomous driving research, including both the public and private sectors. Both RSS and SFF advocate for an open model for safety, to enable key stakeholders to grasp the practicality and usefulness of these safety solutions. Sharing of data between the numerous existing companies should be normalized. Although this poses the risk of introducing market competition and possibly an race to protect Intellectual Property, the alternative gate-keeping of information will only inhibit advancements.
Different perspectives on safety should be welcome
The fixation on having a consensus on a single definition of safety is undoubtedly an impossible task, that causes unnecessary tension within the automated vehicle industry. Given the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of different stakeholders, it is only fair that views on safety will span a spectrum of possible definitions. Safety frameworks should adapt the definition that best serves their interests, and companies should then have the chance to pick and choose what definitions are in alignments with their goals, albeit within the constraints of logical reasoning.
In conclusion, the NHTSA’s role in this domain is that of a non-regulatory entity, solely concerned with creating dialogue within the automated vehicle industry to foster a productive environment around the issue of automated vehicle safety.
