In 2014, tech giant Google announced its brand-new prototype, Waymo a self-driving car. Unfortunately, the design was scrapped in 2017. However, what happened did not put a complete stop in expanding self-driving cars to the world.
Modern cars offer a wide selection of driving aids, but few models come with advanced features like assisted-parking technology and systems capable of taking over acceleration and steering in different driving situations. A report shows that even though there is an optimistic surge in market penetration of the systems, the public is still in doubt when it comes to relying on them.
SAE or the Society of Automotive Engineers, a large engineering professional association and standards-developing organization- released the classification of automated driving system in 2014 with the objective of making everything clear across the board. It did not go well since critics pointed out the limitations in taxonomy. One of the characteristics shows that it was designed for a technical audience, it turns out that the public was left with no choice but just go with whatever information was given to them.
In 2016, Mercedes-Benz released an advertisement for their 2017 E-Class car. What the advertisement showed was the self-driving F015 concept car and using "Minority Report" like displays. The advertisement was criticized by road safety advocates because it overstated "the capability of automated-driving functions available" of the E-Class. You may even spot the fine print: "Vehicle cannot drive itself but has automated driving features."
Tesla experienced a similar controversy in 2016 when they announced that they would release self-driving capabilities to their vehicles. The company was criticized for misleading advertising and "overstating the autonomy of its vehicles."
The public may not realize the harm of misleading ad campaigns, but earlier this year the American Automobile Association released a report showing that the terminology used by manufacturers to describe their automated technology is difficult for the public to understand. Although some may think this is just a minor issue, it does have deeper repercussions.
These include using the vehicle in unintended ways, fully ignoring possible warnings and reducing the level of monitoring or attention paid while driving. These are just some safety consequences that were added in the official investigation report following the first fatal accident involving a vehicle with an automated driving system.
What are the drivers left to do? Before you drive a vehicle that is equipped with self-driving features, you need to find more about the capabilities and limitations of the car. You can talk to your dealership about it or you can go online and do a bit of research. You can go to MyCarDoesWhat.org for a valuable resource. This website has tons of helpful videos and links to the websites of manufacturers and user guides that show the do's and don'ts of automated driving systems.
