Consumer Watchdog is asking the California Department of Motor Vehicles to amend its Autonomous Vehicle Regulation to require that police investigate any crashes of robot cars being tested on public roads. They also urge the DMV to require any data and video gathered by a self-driving car just before and during a crash should be provided to the department. The video and data – with personally identifying information redacted – should be released to the public.
We at AUTO Connected Car News, previously stated that since autonomous cars rely on cameras and sensors that it makes sense that the public should be able to see what really happens in crashes. It is especially important in cases where the self-driving car is behaving badly such as taking forever to make a left turn, causing the surrounding cars to take actions that are dangerous. Many of the collisions involving self-driving cars are rear-enders where the vehicle behind the car runs into it. If the self-driving car suddenly slows down it could be rear-ended. Then the car company could supply a statement saying that the driver behind the car wasn’t paying attention. Data collection would show the changing speed of the vehicle which may show collision-causing fluctuations.
“The robot car accident reports are prepared and filed by the company doing the testing. Inevitably the companies will present their version of what happened in any crash in the best possible light,” wrote John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project director. “Relying solely on the word of the testing company is not adequate to protect the legitimate public interest in ensuring robot cars are tested safely.”
Consumer Watchdog said police should interview drivers and witnesses and file an independent report about any incident.
Consumer Watchdog noted that the Autonomous Vehicle Regulations also require the companies testing robot cars to file reports about every instance when a human driver had to take control of the car. The first such “disengagement” reports are due Jan. 1, 2016. Consumer Watchdog said those reports must be released to the public.
“Google’s cars have been involved in the most crashes – 15 – perhaps because they have the most vehicles on public roads. Under the current reporting system the DMV – and the public – must rely entirely on the Internet giant’s version of what happened,” Simpson wrote. “There is no independent third-party verification. ‘Trust us, we’re Google’ simply isn’t good enough when our public highways become the company’s laboratory.”
As of Aug. 14 there were nine companies with 78 robot cars and 311 drivers approved for testing on California roads, according to the DMV. They are: Volkswagen with three cars and 30 drivers, Mercedes Benz with five cars and 13 drivers, Google with 48 cars (including 25 prototype cars) and 191 drivers, Delphi with two cars and nine drivers, Tesla with 12 cars and16 drivers, Bosch LLC with two cars and 20 drivers, Nissan with three cars and 20 drivers, Cruise Automation with two cars and 11 drivers, and BMW with one car and one driver.
