Skip to main content

Consumer Watchdog calls on NHTSA to strength rules on autonomous cars

The US Consumer Watchdog has called on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require a steering wheel, brake and accelerator so a human driver can take control of a self-driving robot car when necessary in the guidelines it is developing on automated vehicle technology. In comments for a NHTSA public meeting about automated vehicle technology, John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's privacy project director, also listed ten questions he said the agency must ask Google about its self-
April 11, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The US Consumer Watchdog has called on the 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require a steering wheel, brake and accelerator so a human driver can take control of a self-driving robot car when necessary in the guidelines it is developing on automated vehicle technology.

In comments for a NHTSA public meeting about automated vehicle technology, John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's privacy project director, also listed ten questions he said the agency must ask Google about its self-driving robot car program.

These include, amongst others: whether Google will agree to publish its software algorithms, including how the company's artificial car intelligence will be programmed to decide what happens in the event of a potential collision; whether Google will publish a complete list of real-life situations, such as police hand signals, the cars cannot yet understand and how it intends to deal with them; how Google will prove that self-driving cars are safer than today's vehicles; does Google have the technology to prevent malicious hackers from seizing control of a driverless vehicle or any of its systems.

"Deploying a vehicle today without a steering wheel, brake, accelerator and a human driver capable of intervening when something goes wrong is not merely foolhardy.  It is dangerous," said Simpson. "NHTSA's autonomous vehicle guidelines must reflect this fact."

Related Content

  • January 26, 2012
    What's next for traffic management and data collection?
    As the technologies and stakeholders in traffic management evolve, what can we expect to see happening in the coming years? For many, the conversation of the moment is just how, and how far, the newer technologies and services provided principally by the private sector should be allowed to intrude into the realms of traffic management.
  • July 18, 2017
    Leading Finland’s transport revolution
    Anne Berner, Finland’s minister of transport and communications, does not fit the normal political mould. She is not a career politician but a business executive who became a member of parliament in 2015 and has said from the outset that she will only serve one term. Without concerns about being re-elected and a clear view of the future of transport, Berner can concentrate on what needs to be done - tackling some of the more contentious and intransigent subjects. Her name is best known for two major initiat
  • March 16, 2012
    Google maps the future of traffic and travel information?
    Will the relentless growth of Google lead to it becoming the ultimate provider of travel information services? Huw Williams investigates Google’s strategy and David Crawford discovers what two principal rivals are doing to keep pace. In the first weeks of 2012 one company staked two divergent claims on the future of transport. One is the science fiction of only a decade ago, turned into reality: the driverless car. The other seems more prosaic, yet in its own way is just as significant a marker of the futur
  • March 21, 2022
    The benefits of Lidar

    While Lidar is gaining ground in the ITS industry, it has not yet reached the level of mass adoption where it shows up frequently in requests for proposals (RFPs) from cities and DoTs.