Who sets the safety principles for automated driving?

The many benefits and opportunities promised by autonomous vehicles (AVs) will only be realised if this technology is developed and deployed safely. To ensure that it is, leading AV developers came together in 2019 to launch the Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium (AVSC). Today, the consortium membership list includes a number of big name automakers and tech companies, including Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, Daimler, Motional and Lyft. Together, they are collaborating on the common goal of establishing a set of safety principles for testing and operation of SAE Level 4 and 5 automated driving.

So far, the consortium has released eight best practices to guide this potentially ground-breaking development work. AVSC Director Amy Chu believes that commonly agreed guidelines like these not only help build public trust by making sure that safety topics are front and centre, but they can also accelerate the standards-making process and eventually usher in a new safety paradigm.