Self-drive Mercedes will save occupants before pedestrians

■ Occupants prioritised in a crash admits safety boss

FUTURE autonomous Mercedes vehicles will prioritise saving their own occupants in no-win traffic situations, the company’s safety executives have told Auto Express.

The tricky moral question continues to be debated by lawmakers, ethicists and lawyers, but for Mercedes’ Manager of Driver Assistance Systems, Active Safety and Ratings, the answer couldn’t be clearer.

“If you know you can save at least one person, at least save that one. Save the one in the car,” Christoph von Hugo said in an interview at the recent Paris Motor Show.

“If all you know for sure is that one thing, one death, can be prevented then that’s your first priority,” continued von Hugo.

“You could sacrifice the car, but then the people you’ve saved, you don’t know what happens to them after that in situations that are often very complex, so you save the ones you know you can save,” he argued.

Engineering Level Four and Level Five autonomous systems to keep their occupants alive in physically and ethically tricky situations might be music to the ears of future buyers, but it’s not something that occupies much of von Hugo’s time.

He’s far busier working to keep the cars out of those situations in the first place. “We believe this ethical question won’t be as relevant as people believe today. It will occur much less often,” he said. “This moral question of who to save: 99 per cent of our engineering work is to prevent these situations from happening at all.

“We are working so our cars don’t drive into situations where that could happen and drive away from potential situations where those decisions have to be made at all. It’s not about miles. It’s about situations and there are an infinite number of them.”

“If you know you can save at least one person, save that one. Save the person in the car” CHRISTOPH VON HUGO Mercedes