The advent of autonomous vehicles globally will happen, but no one can accurately predict the date it will happen. But with the industry and the technology maturing with each passing day, there are some near-term and future challenges one needs to address.
The government of United Kingdom recently has announced its plans for self-driving vehicles to become a reality on UK roads starting from the year 2025. In fact, the government has proposed that some level of autonomous features will be allowed on highways starting as soon as next year.
While on one hand, this forward looking could very well make UK the first country to adopt autonomous vehicles a reality. But on the other hand, while the key challenge would be to ensure the integration of autonomous vehicles on the roads with the existing non-autonomous vehicles. The other challenge would be how much dependence one could have on the autonomous tech?
One has to understand that most of the current road users have no direct experience of self-driving vehicle technology, and most assumptions about the vehicles’ safety are not based on real-world testing on UK roads.
According to a research conducted by IAM RoadSmart, in collaboration with Southampton University, shows that there could be an over-reliance on self-driving technology, particularly when control is switched between the vehicle and the driver. However, coaching was clearly shown to deliver safer drivers in simulator studies. The charity has urged car makers and government to educate drivers about the capabilities of the technology, to help them understand that they still must pay attention, and appreciate how different types of roads users, such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcycles, will interact with autonomous systems.
