New push on safety of autonomous cars
HOW often do you rely on visual cues from fellow drivers — whether by eye contact, a look or a gesture — to figure out what they intend doing next, and therefore what you should do? And how would you get such cues from an autonomous vehicle in a future world where driven and driverless cars share the road?
These fascinating question are being pondered by Volvo, which has called for a universal safety standard for autonomous car communication at the launch of its
360c autonomous concept car (pictured).
According to Volvo, the 360c addresses this challenge with a system comprising external sounds, colours, visuals, movements, as well as combinations of these tools, to communicate the vehicle’s intentions to other road users. This means it is at all times clear what the car will do next. And the company, which is renowned for safety leadership, is using the 360c to call for a universal communication standard, so that human motorists can read those cues with confidence, regardless of which maker built it.
One further thing Volvo may wish to consider is developing a nonautonomous car that is adept at reading the intention of its human driver, and convey that driver’s intentions to the world in a similarly standard way.
Such functionality would certainly come in handy in this part of the world, where a significant proportion of drivers proceed in a bubble world of their own, blissfully unaware of much that is going on around them, and certainly in no mind to signal their own sometimes random intentions in any useful way.
One solution could be to integrate a mindreading chip within the mobile device which so many in this part of the world still seem to insist on using while driving, despite it being against the law, and a major cause of driver distraction.
I’ve seen a few shockers in that regard of late. Most were in Dunedin, but the one that took the cake was in Queenstown a few weeks back: a chap bumbling through peakhour traffic in an inattentive way with one hand on the wheel and a mobile clamped to his ear.
Ironically, he was behind the wheel of a Spark van. Not a great look for a major player in this country’s telecommunications market, in my view.