Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit consumer education and advocacy organisation, warned the California Department of Motor Vehicles not to let Google and others with a vested interest in developing driverless vehicles
push the DMV into issuing inadequate rules regulating the public use of autonomous cars.
The group noted a list of shortcomings of Google’s driverless car technology, including:
– Weather. Heavy precipitation interferes with the vehicle’s sensors and they don’t work in the snow, or in heavy rain.
– Human hand signals. The robot cars can’t interact reliably with hand signals given by the human driver of another vehicle, or a policeman using only hand signals to direct traffic.
– Sunshine. If the sun is behind a traffic light, it can interfere with the driverless car’s ability to determine the traffic light’s colour.
– Changing road conditions. The sensors don’t recognize large potholes and would not detect an open manhole. If a traffic light were installed overnight as in the case of a road construction site, the car’s driverless navigation system would not expect it.
– Pre-mapped roads. Google’s robot cars rely on detailed sensor mapping of routes before the robot car hits the road. If a Google driverless car tried a route that had not been specially mapped, probably even a large parking lot, it wouldn’t know what to do.
– Humans. The driverless cars’ video sensors can’t reliably distinguish between a tree branch blowing in the wind and a pedestrian.
Consumer Watchdog said the decision on whether to allow a particular manufacturer’s driverless cars to be offered to the public should be informed by the results of safety testing that is being done under the DMV testing regulations now in effect. Safety issues are paramount, Consumer Watchdog said, but there are other substantial questions about privacy, data security and insurance which are also raised by driverless cars. The DMV regulations now being written governing the public use of autonomous vehicles should deal with these important questions as well.
