No driver, no steering wheel
One of the most common questions I’m used to being asked in the classroom or at conferences when I show a video of self-driving vehicle operating without a safety driver is “why does it have a steering wheel, if there is no one sitting in the driver’s seat who can use it?” The answer, until now, was simple: regulation. By definition, a car driving on public roads had to have a driver’s seat, a steering wheel and pedals.
Now, for the first time, the federal agency in charge of safety regulation in the United States has approved the production and development of truly autonomous vehicles, i.e. devoid of human-operated driving controls such as a steering wheel or pedals.
A 155-page document, entitled “Occupant protection for vehicles with automated driving systems”, provides the first framework for vehicle manufacturers to design, build and sell cars without any manual controls, and establishing the terminology to eliminate, for example, concepts such as driver’s seat, steering wheel or pedals, and their replacement by neutral terms that do not necessarily carry the connotation of operation by a human being.
Thus, steering wheel becomes steering control system, while the standardized name and the precautions associated with the so-called “driver seat” are eliminated, and the controls associated with the pedals are redefined, which has already…
