WAS AUTOMATION DEALT A SERIOUS BLOW?

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April 4, 2018 Vol. 15 No. 7

So what should we make of the Arizona fatality involving an Uber taxi in autonomous mode? The facts aren’t altogether clear yet, so I’m slightly hesitant to comment, but in a sense they don’t matter. It’s about the optics.

The vehicle in question, a Volvo XC90 SUV travelling at 40 mph, was apparently in Level Four autonomous mode and simply failed to ‘see’ the woman step onto the roadway, at night. A driver was present, though not driving, and apparently couldn’t react in time to avert the collision. I’d venture a guess that autonomy has little to do with this, that nothing could have prevented the woman’s death. There simply wasn’t time for any reaction, human or otherwise.

Confusing the issue somewhat, the Volvo’s native collision-avoidance system had apparently been turned off in favor of Uber’s own technology.

Regardless, whatever trust had been built up in the idea of vehicular automation, cars or trucks, it was severely damaged by this incident. That was bound to happen at some point but Uber was probably right to suspend its autonomous testing. Optics again. The public seems to have little confidence in the autonomous idea in cars, and a lot less than little when it comes to trucks. It will take time to restore the average person’s willingness to entertain the concept of vehicles driving themselves, let alone have actual confidence in it.

There’s no surprise there, and this really isn’t a setback for proponents of automation, because it was never seen as any kind of slam dunk. The technology is well advanced, though clearly not at 100%, but the social and legal aspects of this were always going to be the bigger challenges by a very wide margin. In a sense, then, nothing has changed.

IS PLATOONING CLOSER to becoming a reality on our highways? Seems so, but this one’s no slam dunk either. I wrote about it in my February 21st newsletter (go here) and will be dealing with it in a comprehensive way at the coming Truck World 2018 show. A new feature at the show this year is the Fleet Forum session at 9:00 am on Friday, April 20th (the show runs from the 19th through the 21st at the International Centre near Toronto’s Pearson International Airport).

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Rolf Lockwood is editor emeritus of Today's Trucking and a regular contributor to Trucknews.com.