Driver Ahead conference: more training needed on driverless cars

Driverless cars can create confusion unless training meets the fast pace of change and helps drivers cope with a whole new set of demands, according to a conclusion reached by industry experts at London’s ‘Driver Ahead’ conference in London. The IAM RoadSmart/ RAC Foundation/ Pirelli event consisted of over 100 industry experts who set out to map a safe route for driverless cars. Guest speaker Victoria Coren-Mitchell opened the conference by introducing the “death by code” concept
October 12, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

Driverless cars can create confusion unless training meets the fast pace of change and helps drivers cope with a whole new set of demands, according to a conclusion reached by industry experts at London’s ‘Driver Ahead’ conference in London.

The IAM RoadSmart/ 4961 RAC Foundation/ Pirelli event consisted of over 100 industry experts who set out to map a safe route for driverless cars.

Guest speaker Victoria Coren-Mitchell opened the conference by introducing the “death by code” concept, challenging the conference to decide if deaths caused by a computer are better or worse than human error.

Simon Thompson, human factors specialist at 7998 Jaguar Land Rover, said: “Without the driving, there will be the desire to do secondary tasks – but how does the car engage with the driver when it needs him or her? There is a lot more that needs to be done in designing cars so that controls are easier to find, when asking the driver to take over control again.”

Other experts, such as Professor Nick Reed, head of mobility research at 311 Bosch pointed out that drivers could also misuse the vehicle systems, “Any system needs to be aware of the effective use or misuse of it.”

Professor and chair of human factors engineering at Southampton University, Neville Stanton pointed out that there may be times when a driver has nothing to do, then a sudden requirement to intervene in an emergency situation can lead to them panicking and creating a tragedy. He said, “The problem with automation is that it is not currently powerful to render the driver completely redundant. It requires the driver to monitor continuously and intervene occasionally. The car needs to support, not replace the driver.”

Nic Fasci, lead engineer for vehicle engineering and homologation at Tata Motors European Technical centre, said: “The key to autonomous vehicles is training, training, training! The skill of driving must be robotic before the software can be developed. The skill of driving is being eroded and this can be seen every day.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Bosch displays intelligent cameras
    June 5, 2018
    Bosch is displaying its range of intelligent cameras at ITS America 2018, featuring built-in intelligent video analytics for ITS applications. “[They offer] reliability and the best image quality you can get,” says Constant Rutter, marketing and application design for transportation, at Bosch Security Systems. Durability is also key, he went on: “Once it’s there, it’ll stay there forever, which is important for traffic.” Products on display include the MIC-9000i (near right, with regional sales manager
    Read More
  • Slow moving US road user charging programme
    July 18, 2012
    Bern Grush recently attended the Mileage-Based User Fee Conference in Austin Texas where the fledgling American landscape for Road User Charging is beginning to take shape. When I was a kid I liked to poke sticks into the ants' nests in sidewalk cracks. Ants would scatter in every conceivable direction. They ran in circles, they ran over and through each other. They screamed without logic. I was fascinated.
    Read More
  • UK readiness for AVs depends on gender, age and location, says Fujitsu
    November 27, 2018
    The UK’s readiness to use a ride from a driverless car depends on gender, age and where you live, says a new report from Fujitsu. In a study of 2,000 members of the British public and 600 senior business decision makers, Fujitsu has discovered that transport is second only to education as the sector people are most keen to see transformed by technology. Despite this, there remains some ‘discomfort’ surrounding autonomous vehicles (AV). Less than a third of respondents would be happy to be picked up by a
    Read More
  • Need for performance standards for road user charging systems
    February 2, 2012
    GNSS-based road use metering systems need performance metrics, as well as ways to test and reliably compare them. Bern Grush and Joaquín Cosmen write about the function of the GNSS Metering Association for Road-use charging (GMAR), recently set up to address this issue
    Read More

Highlighted Content