Driverless push continues, despite roadbump

By Dave DeWitte

dave@corridorbusiness.com

The University of Iowa will host a symposium next month to provide insight into the legal, media and social reaction to the inevitable first fatal crash involving a driverless vehicle or aircraft.

The “First Crash” symposium, the details of which haven’t been released, are an example of the UI’s continuing efforts to promote driverless vehicle research and economic activity within the Corridor, even though the state did not fund a request last fall to create a dedicated research institute at the UI.

Public and media reaction to the first fatality is likely to be rapid and dramatic, UI officials said, and could shape future public acceptance of autonomously operated vehicles. Public perception of blame is likely to be one issue, while legal assignment of blame will be another.

Considerable research has shown that autonomously driven vehicles cause fewer accidents than human driven vehicles, due to normal human factors such as distractibility and fatigue.

“In that accident, the overwhelming odds are that the fault will lie with the human driver,” said Daniel Reed, UI vice president for research, who expects to make introductory remarks at the symposium in the University of Iowa’s Public Policy Center. “The issue to be decided is how that liability will be apportioned.”

Executives from some top automakers in the U.S. and Sweden and federal transportation safety officials from both countries are expected to be participate or attend.

The UI is also involved in a number of collaborations in autonomous vehicle research. One is with Chalmers University in Sweden, which is leading the largest pilot project to date on integrating driverless vehicles with public traffic.

The major trial will put about 100 autonomous vehicles on the public streets in the central core and ring road of Gothenburg, Sweden, UI leaders explained, and will use some of the UI’s data methods to record performance results.

UI leaders would like the next phase of the on-street trials to come to the Iowa City-Coralville area, where some of the first local ordinances in the nation expressly permitting autonomous vehicle research on public thoroughfares were passed last year.

The UI and Iowa are a good match for Chalmers University’s pilot programs, UI leaders said. Iowa’s transportation regulatory authorities, like those in Sweden, are able to respond rapidly to questions and regulatory issues surrounding research needs, according to David Conrad, the UI’s economic development director. The UI has also sent its first student to Sweden for the project.

The UI is also involved in a consortium of universities that are collaborating on a response to the Federal Aviation Administration’s recently issued draft rules for light drones in civilian airspace, Mr. Reed noted. He said the UI expects to announce soon a project with the Iowa Department of Transportation regarding public policy issues surrounding autonomous vehicles.

As host to the National Advanced Driving Simulator, the UI has more than 20 years of history in automated driving research, Mr. Conrad said. The UI had asked the Iowa Board of Regents for $3 million over three years to fund creation of a research institute it is calling the Autonomous, Intelligent Machines and Systems Institute.

Mr. Conrad said the funding denial was not based on the merits of the request. Rather, he said, Gov. Terry Branstad’s budget eliminated all ancillary requests from the Regents institutions, and the institute funding UI requested was one of them.

“We haven’t given up,” Mr. Reed said of the funding request.

The Iowa City Area Development (ICAD) Group brought forth the idea to focus UI research, community and economic development support on driverless cars about two years ago, and public reaction has so far been good, according to ICAD President Mark Nolte. With the technological hurdles to autonomously piloted vehicles mostly overcome, the UI’s Public Policy Center will play a major role in helping fit them into the framework of regulatory policy and legal statutes.

“The rate of technological evolution is really challenging our social structure to adapt and make regulatory structures,” Mr. Reed said. “There are issues of social responsibility and legal responsibility that will now have to be decided.”