When will we get banned from driving cars?

In my previous article (Is it the end of cars’ era as we know it?) I wrote about benefits of autonomous technology in automotive industry and future of the whole branch, including a vision of possible design of roads which still do not exist. Roads which currently cause our complains about traffic, road works, insufficient infrastructure and other road users: pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and drivers, taxi drivers and drivers of utility, civilian and emergency vehicles. If we want to stop complaining about all those things,
we need to face many challenges — not only personal ones but those related
to industry and bodies responsible for comfort of our transport.
When will the cars drive us?
My vision explained in the previous article might have scared some readers, others could have felt certain fascinations, but most people probably wonder when will this vision turn into reality. Taking into consideration the development rate of autonomous vehicles, it could seem that driverless future lays just around the corner… However, despite introducing state-of-the-art solutions worthy of Formula One pace, this is just the technological progress which remains unmatched by other industries — which are essential for implementation of existing innovations.
The most important issue in the process of introducing self-driving cars to the roads is of course the legislation. Car manufacturers try to obtain road permits for test vehicles so far and these permissions apply only to certain areas. In order to completely forget about driving, we need to wait for introduction of regulations regarding their usage. On one hand there
is a matter of using cars by users (no longer drivers), on the other — a question of introducing standardised communication between vehicles and smart city infrastructure.
Who should be protected by an autonomous vehicle?
Safety of passengers and other road users is another key aspect to traffic introduction of autonomous vehicles. Here appears a dilemma: who should
be protected by an autonomous vehicle — its passengers or pedestrians who trespass the road? What should be done by the car which encounters
a pedestrian or group of pedestrians who suddenly appear on the road? Should it protect the passengers and hit the pedestrians or rather avoid the pedestrians and hit a roadside obstacle, exposing its passengers to danger? The technology is designed to protect us but it might turn out that it would endanger us… In every contentious situation a soulless computer is meant
to decide who should be protected. If it opts to protect the pedestrians and the vehicle owner and its passenger gets hurt, then who would like to invest one’s own money in such solution?
Following this reasoning, in this scenario it is important to consider who should cover insurance cost, which is now imposed upon the owner.
We already know that there will be problems with determining the driver,
so maybe it should be the owner anyway? But why the owner, since he has
no control over the actions of his vehicle? So who has the control?
The manufacturer. Does it mean that the obligation of insurance should
be abolished? Or maybe every road user should be obliged to have
an appropriate insurance? It will apply to everyone: pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, passengers or vehicle drivers. One thing is certain:
the insurance industry will have to find a new business model.
In order to clarify the issues of responsibility and safety, I would like to remind the classification described in my previous article. The vehicles which will transport us are divided into four groups and this categorisation is essential
to assess who should be protected by the vehicle and who will be responsible for this.
Let us start with vehicles which operate only in autonomous mode and are owned by us. This scenario seems to be the easiest one but also cruel at the same time. We paid for the vehicle, so we also paid for our own safety and the vehicle has to protect us in the best possible way. No matter who trespasses the road and regardless of any manoeuvres undertaken by the others, the vehicle should try to protect everyone but its passengers have to be priori-tised. After all, we cannot allow a situation in which we suffer as a result
of extreme irresponsibility and recklessness of other road users. It might seem brutal and selfish, but please read on — it will get interesting.
The next group consists of autonomous vehicles but with possibility to regain manual control at any time. In fact it does not change an awful lot: if we drive on our own, it is our decision who should be protected. In autonomous mode the situation is exactly the same as described above. Of course choosing this type of vehicle means higher insurance fees, with costs covered by us and the manufacturer. Therefore, the insurance will be shared and the insurance claims will be covered by different entities — depending on driver’s
or computer’s guilt.
This leaves us with two more vehicle groups: autonomous urban transport and autonomous vehicles used in car sharing networks. These two cases might be considered as one, because the basic difference between them is limited
to one factor: urban transport is a collective way of travelling and in car sharing model people travel alone or in small groups (like in taxis). These types of transport are considered as public, the behaviour of vehicles will
be different. The computer will decide how to react, when a trespasser appears on the road. It will have to assess, within a few milliseconds, who would suffer less injuries in case of collision: is it better to hit one pedestrian or a tree, having three passengers onboard — protected by safety systems, such as seat belts and airbags.
Many aspects of autonomous transport raise doubts, so it is not a surprise that one of them refers to the transition period between current state of our roads and their future state. After all, we cannot impose a sudden ban on driving regular cars! It would trigger a public outrage and cause grave economic implications (an emergency need to replace vehicle fleets would involve unbearable expenses and objections of entrepreneurs). Most likely the exchange process will happen gradually and man-driven cars will have
to co-exist with autonomous ones on the roads. In fact, this co-existence might be the most difficult part of the process.
This is one of the key aspects in which we — as bluecloud — want to assist. Thanks to our team, with its experience regarding design and programming of IT solutions, we have created two innovative brands.
The first one — CarLot — is a system of navigating vehicles and drivers
on multistorey car parks. Our sensors help to find the best parking spots
in areas with limited GPS coverage. The drivers can use our solution
as a mobile or dashboard app while autonomous vehicles are able to commu-nicate with the sensors on their own and find a parking space after the passengers have left the car. This system means that the users can appreciate the usefulness of the car park — which saves space at the same time. Moreover, this solution helps to protect the environment, as the vehicles head to the designated parking space directly, instead of driving around the car park and searching for a spot.
Our second solution is designed for competition drivers, taking part in rallies and races. The telemetry system has been praised by the best Polish teams, drivers and co-drivers — such as Rallytechnology. User-friendliness and meeting the requirements of customers are its biggest assets. More information here: race.gt.
But are there any common things between this solution and autonomous vehicles? Seemingly not a lot but the system is used on various types of roads and with high speeds, so we can collect plenty of data on vehicle behaviour
in different circumstances. Furthermore, this data is gathered from cars driven by real champions! This way we can provide information on car’s behaviour on certain type of road — which has direct impact on safety — and guarantee that the autonomous car experience is far from boring.
Since the very beginning automotive industry is accompanied by emotions, adrenaline and good fun. Knowledge of the ways in which competition drivers achieve their spectacular results and maintain full car control at the same time, enables us to teach autonomous vehicles how to drive quickly and safely — providing the passengers with additional excitement. With similar equipment packages in all autonomous vehicles, the manufacturers will search for ways to attract customers and convince them to buy their cars.
In this scenario the speed of travel becomes a crucial competitive advantage.
Within our race.gt division we are absolutely certain that in spite of completing the travel in autonomous cars without our input, decisions regarding travel speed will remain in our hands. All the knowledge gathered by us will ensure that travelling remains a source of positive sensations.
Are you interested in autonomous vehicles or smart city? Perhaps you are working on solutions in this field and you would like to talk? Go ahead and drop us a message or give us a Skype call.

