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United Kingdom Transportation Technology

UK Government Releases Rules To Get Self-Driving Cars Onto Public Roads 157

Posted by samzenpus from the keep-your-eyes-on-the-road-your-hands-upon-the-wheel dept.
rippeltippel writes: Ars Technica UK reports that the UK government has released the rules to get self-driving cars onto public roads. As the article reports, drivers will be required to have "a high level of knowledge about the technology used" (i.e. they'll be techies) and — most notably — will have to mimic the act of driving, to avoid confusing other drivers. The original PDF can be viewed here.
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UK Government Releases Rules To Get Self-Driving Cars Onto Public Roads More

UK Government Releases Rules To Get Self-Driving Cars Onto Public Roads

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  • Three Laws of Self-Driving Cars (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    A self-driving car may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
    A self-driving car must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
    A self-driving car must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

    • A self-driving car may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm except if it breaks the traffic regulations. A self-driving car must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law except if it breaks the traffic regulations. A self-driving car must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws except if it breaks the traffic regulations.
    • I think the main things for self driving cars to know and do..is STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!!

      :)

      If they are going to just go the speed limit and stay in the right lanes (in the US), then, I'm game for them.

      Please just stay out of my way and let me get on with my drive.

      :)

  • "Mimic the act of driving"? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jeffb (2.718) ( 1189693 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:05PM (#50146789)

    This actually reminds me of the Red Flag Laws [wikipedia.org] that were passed when automobiles first began appearing. Because, obviously, the most important thing for an automobile is to avoid spooking the livestock, er, human drivers for whom the roads are really intended.

    I hope I live to see the day when driving manually on a public road is viewed the same way as herding livestock or riding a horse on a public road -- quaint and interesting, but mostly disruptive, and almost never actually done.

    • Re:"Mimic the act of driving"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:19PM (#50146923) Homepage

      I want to know when old-fashioned human drivers will be held to the same driving standards as the ones proposed in that document.

    • Any time a government gets involved with predicting the future, they get it embarrassingly wrong. Every one of these guides reads like the following: "We support self driving cars, so here is the exact product everyone must release and the one path to market that everyone must take." So the consumer gets the 5 year old scripted vision of non technical bureaucrats on a power trip. Innovation in the sector slows to utility-pace. When an industry manages to escape this yoke (e.g. mobile), the pace of innovatio

      • Yes, government can't predict the future. Neither can anyone else. We also can't have unregulated self driving cars on public roads either.

        • Yes, government can't predict the future. Neither can anyone else.

          When a non-gov't predicts wrong, he loses. When a gov't predicts wrong, it holds back tech by a decade. Gov't should know this and approach these things with some caution and humility.

          We also can't have unregulated self driving cars on public roads either.

          This would be better than wrong regulation. No regulation means that each car company is exposed to civil liabilities and brand damage, which is all the incentive they need to keep things pr

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jpapon ( 1877296 )

            This would be better than wrong regulation. No regulation means that each car company is exposed to civil liabilities and brand damage, which is all the incentive they need to keep things pretty safe.

            You could make exactly the same argument with respect to human drivers and driver's licenses - that you don't need licenses because each person is exposed to civil liabilities and has a personal reputation. Yet we still require humans to be licensed to drive, and that's when we know the failure modes very well. We have no idea what the failure modes might be for some new algorithm. We can't just release them into the wild all willy-nilly and hope for the best.

            Yes, regulation slows progress to a degree. T

            • There are lots of reasons to hasten the wide adoption of driverless cars:

              1. Climate change: driverless cars mean no range anxiety and focus on per-mile costs: perfect for electric cars
              2. Human-caused traffic fatalities: lots. even a rushed and buggy algorithm saves hundreds of lives per day.

              Smart regulation, operator licenses, et al make a lot of sense and it's very tempting to say they should be implemented with our best guesses at the moment. But considering that (a) there have been zero algorithm-caused

          • You talk about civil liabilities and brand damage to the car company, but actually what that means is that people will die, and the company will calculate how much brand damage is acceptable.

        • Actually, there is a way to have these kinds of issues covered outside of both the tradiational public and private sectors. From the evil overlord list [eviloverlord.com].

          12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

        • We also can't have unregulated self driving cars on public roads either.

          False dilemma. No regulations, and stupid regulations are not the only two alternatives. A third alternative would be to have sensible regulations, that require a licensed driver be ready to take over in an emergency, but don't require that driver to pretend to be driving.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jpapon ( 1877296 )
            I agree the "pretend to be driving" bit is ridiculous, and I doubt that part will last or be enforced. It makes much more sense to just have the car clearly labeled as a self driving car on the outside, just like student drivers.

          • Re: "Mimic the act of driving"? (Score:5, Informative)

            by BasilBrush ( 643681 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @04:51PM (#50148113)

            They are perfectly sensible regulations.

            but don't require that driver to pretend to be driving.

            The regulations don't say that. They say precisely this:
            "Test drivers and operators should be conscious of their appearance to other road users, for example continuing to maintain gaze directions appropriate for normal driving."

            It's a perfectly reasonable requirement. A "driver" not looking where the car is going, or doing some other bizarre action would distract and alarm other road users. And such distraction could cause an accident.

            Note also that these are not rules for production autonomous vehicles, when the public might be more aware of what's going on. They are for test-drivers, at a time when many people won't be aware of the tests.

            As usual the real stupidity is in the Slashdot summary and the knee-jerk reaction of some posters.

          • I agree that such a statute is pretty sensible. But let's explore that a little.

            Say Google has 100 cars and wants to move as fast as possible. Humans only want to work first shift and need breaks every few hours. So these prototypes get tested for around 6 hours per day, when the potential is that they can be tested 24 hours per day. With a simple, sensible statute, you've reduced the testing capability by 75%. And for what purpose? Google's cars have never caused an accident or injury, so any problem is by

      • When an industry manages to escape this yoke (e.g. mobile), the pace of innovation is dizzying expressly because the future is unscripted and the path there is allowed to be messy.

        Bad example. During the GSM era, Europe was way ahead for the USA in mobile telephony. Because governments were involved in standardising GSM in the European market, but in the USA the free market introduced many incompatible standards. It wasn't until Europe picked up on the free market fever, and governments stopped taking the lead, that Europe mobile telephony slowed down and the USA caught up.

    • One can hope that it follows the same trend as the red flag laws - as the technology is validated the restrictions will drop one by one.

      As is, I've already reached the point where every time I read about another car accident I think that self driving cars can't come fast enough.

      Just the accident avoidance stuff alone...

    • And I thought our current legislators are brainless:

      "(1) immediately stop the vehicle, (2) immediately and as rapidly as possible... disassemble the automobile, and (3) conceal the various components out of sight, behind nearby bushes until equestrian or livestock is sufficiently pacified"
    • And anyone who likes driving will hope that day never comes. Sure self driving but eliminating driving. No thanks.

      • There are lots of things I like to do, but I realize that allowing other people to do them impedes on my enjoyment of life more than abstaining from them personally. I like driving, there are clear benefits for everyone that outweigh my personal enjoyment of driving. Reduction of traffic jams and collisions will shorten average transit times immediately, and after a few years of proven safety and effectiveness, we could easily eliminate hard speed limits on driverless freeways. People can do the things t

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AgNO3 ( 878843 )
          why do you need an individual car? You do realize that pretty much they have said it a long way out for driverless cars being main stream. like 20-30 years. Thats just MIT though what do they know.

      • I don't think we'll ever see driving forbidden. It might be restricted to certain roads, maybe even private/closed courses. Or it might be subject to mandatory automated overrides in case the driver tries to do something stupid -- yes, the reverse of the current situation, where laws may require a human operator remain ready to take over in case the machine does something stupid.

        I understand that driving can be fun. But do you really want to keep trying to eke out your enjoyment on roads mostly full of peop

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rkww ( 675767 )

      I don't know where you live, but where I live, 20 miles north of London, there are a multitude of stables and I frequently encounter riders on local lanes (where the speed limit is 60 mph.) And Spooking the Livestock can be Very Bad Indeed. Hence the new Code of Practice says 'Particular consideration should be given to the concerns of more vulnerable road users including disabled people, those with visual or hearing impairments, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, children and horse riders. '

    • Yes because everyone wants a performance self driving car. There are easily enough car enthusiasts while a minority to make mandated self driving unlikely.

  • mimic the act of driving (Score:3)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:08PM (#50146803)
    Assuming that mimic the act of driving doesn't mean putting on makeup, shaving or brushing your teeth (no, I didn't RTFA but this is the UK so I think I'm pretty safe in thinking it does not mean brushing your teeth), then doesn't this pretty much defeat the whole idea of having a self driving car? I guess it might still allow the use of a self driving car by someone physically unable to drive for himself, but personally I would rather have a driver who is capable of taking over and driving if the need presents itself than a pretender who acts like they can drive but can't really.
    • Ideally, a self-driving car should only need a user to take over in the case of catastrophic failure, but it should also have safeguards in place so that if it fails some sanity checks it has another system that can at least bring the vehicle to a safe stop.

      Having a system that relies on a sudden hand-off to a human is asking for trouble. As you mention, the point of having a self-driving car is so that you don't have to drive so there's no way that you'll get people to give their full attention to the c

      • Re:mimic the act of driving (Score:5, Interesting)

        by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @03:01PM (#50147259) Homepage

        Exactly. Self cars need to be 100% self driving, or they're utterly useless.

        You can't have a failure mode where it says "OK, meat sock, I have no idea what to do, it's your turn and you have 0.7 seconds to react". That will simply not work.

        That would be idiotic and dangerous, and mean that self-driving cars are mostly here but have huge gaps in what they can do.

        But it should be like a cab, with the passengers being exactly that ... passengers.

        To me, a self-driving car remains a proof of concept if there is ever a mode in which the user needs to take over, the user even has control they could use, or if the user pays for liability insurance as a "driver".

        If Google wants to have self-driving cars, they should be like taxi cabs, and they should have their own liability. This hybrid model is doomed to fail.

        • Exactly. Self cars need to be 100% self driving, or they're utterly useless.

          I wouldn't go that far. What I would say is that it should be overwhelmingly capable of bringing the car to a safe halt in case of a failure. It doesn't need to be able to navigate a chaotic construction zone(IE where the machines are operating, delivering supplies, as opposed to navigating traffic diversions) or go 'offroading'. It simply needs to be able to get 99% of people from point A to point B safely.

          I will agree that a sudden 'I can't handle this!' handoff to the driver of the vehicle would be a

        • My guess is that self-driving car systems will be introduced gradually. You'll have "highway mode" self-driving cars where the self-driving system would be an enhanced cruise control. You go on the highway, hit the "self drive" button, and then sit back and relax until your exit nears. The next step would be to take over some stop-and-go city driving (likely used in good weather just like you wouldn't hit "cruise control" now if it was snowing out). Finally, computers would control all car movements afte

          • Imagine if a highway officer saw a car go by today without a person's hands on the wheels. Even if the car was going the speed limit, it would likely be pulled over until the officer knew that this car was self-driving.

            I suppose it's possible that a cop might get excited about seeing a car go by without a person's handson the wheel. It must be noted, however, that a fair number of drivers of cars with power steering drive with one hand on the bottom of the steering wheel (and thus completely out of sight

            • More and more people are keeping their hands low. The old stupid saying was to keep your hands at 10 and 2, but with a bomb now built into the steering column, people are picking up on that being a good way to have both of your arms broken or worse.

              • but with a bomb now built into the steering column, people are picking up on that being a good way to have both of your arms broken or worse.

                I think mythbusters busted that one. The expanding bag pushes your hands/arms harmlessly to the side, no matter what position on the wheel they are.

                It's just the usual fear of the new. Future generations will have no fear of airbags.

                • mythbusters gets a lot of stuff wrong. Its entertainment, not science.

                  • Right. You talking out of your ass is bound to be more reliable than actually testing the scenarios out.

                    Idiot.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Macdude ( 23507 )

          You can't have a failure mode where it says "OK, meat sock, I have no idea what to do, it's your turn and you have 0.7 seconds to react". That will simply not work.

          What in the world makes you think they would have such a failure mode?

          Why would they do that when they can have it start alerting the driver when it "sees" something ahead that it doesn't grok allowing the meat sock to take control at it's discretion and if it doesn't, bring the vehicle to a safe and orderly stop until the source of the confusion

      • A self-driving car should *never* need a user to take over. The car should come to an immediate stop, like elevator brakes. This should be no more difficult than providing a dedicated, redundant lane-detection system and steering control, as exists in some vehicles today. Of course, elevators still fall, and car accidents will still happen, and that's unfortunate, but car accidents will be so rare that they will make the national news, unlike the 40,000 traffic fatalities we have every year. And when th

        • A self-driving car should *never* need a user to take over. The car should come to an immediate stop, like elevator brakes

          I think I'd prefer that the car come to a stop outside of the traffic lane, but safely. But yes, if something has failed, I want a tow truck to be a legitimate next step, not the user taking over in what's probably a chaotic situation.

          Especially once they've been operating driverless cars enough that the users are no longer skilled drivers.

    • If mimicking is to prevent other drivers from getting confused, maybe we can have an Android powered by Android Auto (TM). Who can keep other drivers sane while at the same time also entertain fellow passengers.

    • doesn't this pretty much defeat the whole idea of having a self driving car?

      These are rules for test-drivers whilst autonomous cars are under development. They are not rules for drivers of production cars.

    • It is primarily about the psychological aspect. If you saw a car driving without a driver, you would have the police have panicked calls. Same if the person is reading at the wheel or whatnot. This is not about taking over the wheel, this is about not panicking the other drivers with a behavior which is unexpected on the road. My guess is that such requirement would be dropped after a while when self driving car pick up. But as long as 99.9% of the driver have a certain expectation, you pretty much have t
  • Can I just use the steering wheel as a controller while playing Need for Speed?

  • Up to date (Score:4, Funny)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:26PM (#50146977) Journal

    and — most notably — will have to mimic the act of driving, to avoid confusing other drivers

    "When an automobile approaches an intersection, the driver shall exit the automobile and stand in the intersection waving a lit lantern for 30 seconds, looking down each road, and blowing a loud horn, all so as to alert gentlemen on horses and peaceful ladies that they not be startled.

    "Once this is done and the road clear, the automobile may be walked through the intersection. After the automobile is through, the driver shall remove his overcoat, jacket, shirt, and that thing that always flips up in Curly's face, and beat pennance into his own back with a switch of not less than 10 thorns or a whip of not less than three tails."

  • Wait, what? (Score:3)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:26PM (#50146979) Homepage

    Do they really think anybody is going to have a "high level knowledge of the technology"? There's no way in hell Google is going to let anybody product engineers know any of the details, so unless they mean "the computer, it does the driving bits" there isn't a damned thing people will know.

    And the sitting there pretending to drive? Well, that's what happens when clueless lawmakers try to pass laws about technology they don't remotely understand.

    But, whatever, the flying^Wself-driving car isn't something which will catch on in any meaningful sense of the word ... people aren't going to buy these because they don't care, or because the benefits will be very limited.

    Like so many things the futurists tell us are coming Real Soon Now, the world isn't going to be re-tooled to account for this, and they will have to coexist with human drivers for a VERY long time to come. But if they think society is going to spend billions and billions of dollars changing the existing infrastructure to suit their pipedream, they're delusional.

    But, hey, that's what futurists are for. Telling us about stuff which sounds cool but which are otherwise not likely to happen as claimed.

    • As they say, you can tell how old a law is by how well it's written. Modern law is really lousy, and this includes England.

      I figure that the 'high level knowledge' means that they have enough knowledge of the system in order to be able to tell when it's operating outside of specifications, thus knowing to take over. Indeed, that's why it says they must be practiced in taking over.

  • Mimicing (Score:3)

    by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @02:55PM (#50147211)

    The whole point of getting a self-driving car is so I can be doing other things other than driving a car. If I have to mimic driving then what's the point since I won't be able to do those other things.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      So, if I juggle my iPhone, a cheeseburger and a cigarette while my car is driving itself, for all intents and purposes I am mimicking the majority of other drivers. On the other hand, looking ahead with two hands on the wheel could freak them out.

      • So, if I juggle my iPhone, a cheeseburger and a cigarette while my car is driving itself, for all intents and purposes I am mimicking the majority of other drivers.

        You forgot keeping an opened, cold beer between your legs while doing this too.

        :)

    • As an AC put it, these rules are 'obviously intended to allow the companies to put the cars onto the roads for beta testing, not for actual general sale'.

      Once companies pile on enough miles to show that the engineers/professional drivers aren't necessary, the systems can see more general release.

      Personally, at least in the USA I see shoving all the DUI and other people with revoked licenses into a self-driving car rather than messing with breath-testing interlocks once they reach a certain point.

      After that,

    • I think the whole point of this law is to legalize further development in the UK.

      I don't actually think this is a terrible idea, for now. In the future we'll need to be rid of this, but until self-driving cars are consumer-ready we need a transitional state that still maintains public safety but allows for real-world development. Hence, you get somebody who knows the limitations of a self-driving car in the driver's seat, and you have him assimilate as closely as possible with human drivers.

  • I'm surprised it took this long for the bureaucrats to issue silly regulations. I mean, they're only 20 years behind [jalopnik.com].

    Having looked at the proposed regs, they kinda make sense.... if every Tom, Dick, and Harry were to be driving a self-driving car. If any schmuck with a bit of disposable income had a self-driving car, then overbearingly specific regulations might make sense. However (outside of a perhaps very rare to nonexistent hobbyist (this ain't a cheap game)), all of the self driving cars are owned
  • states that "A Code of Practice for testing". So these measures are for allowing clear guidelines on how driverless cars should be TESTED on the road. This code doesnt relate to driverless cars when driven by the public. Hence, the tester should have indepth knowledge of the systems in place and not distract other drivers by not following expectations ( e.g. hidden from view ).

  • Long term goal (Score:3)

    by ThatsNotPudding ( 1045640 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @03:17PM (#50147401)
    I think the goal of governments both authoritarian and democratic (but I repeat myself) is to set the wheels in motion (pun intended) to remove even the option of quasi-anonymous large-scale movements of their citizens; a mobile Panopticon, if you will.

    When I think of autos, I frequently think of the folks in the Great Depression that drove out of the Dust Bowl and headed to California to start a new life. I suspect more than a few of them left behind mortgages and land payments in their wake. Starting from scratch somewhere else will never be allowed again by the Powers that Be.

    A variation of the speech from Inherit the Wind: "You sir, will be allowed your self-driving car, but before you leave town for good, it will drive you to the bank to make sure your financial affairs are in order."

    • A variation of the speech from Inherit the Wind: "You sir, will be allowed your self-driving car, but before you leave town for good, it will drive you to the bank to make sure your financial affairs are in order."

      In the case of the dust bowl, you wanted them gone - keeping them around due to debts would just result in more debts. Until you have to do bankruptcy paperwork, etc... You have to know when to cut your losses.

  • will have to mimic the act of driving, to avoid confusing other drivers

    Got it.

    *starts self-driving car*
    *begins texting friends using both hands while not even looking at the road*

    (Yes, I saw someone driving like this once. No, I don't know how they steered their car if no hands were on the wheel. I got away from them as quickly as I could.)

  • Mimic? (Score:3)

    by DriveDog ( 822962 ) on Monday July 20, 2015 @03:35PM (#50147519)
    "...mimic the act of driving..."? Look down/sideways/backwards/just not ahead, yap on phone, read newspaper, & eat breakfast simultaneously? Pretend to swerve out of lane? Flip people off? Sleep? Oh, wait, UK, sorry... I'm thinking of us in the US.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      "...mimic the act of driving..."? Look down/sideways/backwards/just not ahead, yap on phone, read newspaper, & eat breakfast simultaneously? Pretend to swerve out of lane? Flip people off? Sleep? Oh, wait, UK, sorry... I'm thinking of us in the US

      The big difference being: in the UK they flip people off with two fingers instead of one. Important to keep your mimicry culturally appropriate.

  • the UK government has mandated that drivers of horseless carriages must mimic the acts of a horseback rider so as not to confuse equestrians, with a person in the boot to fling a piece of horse dung every half mile. The exhaust system shall be tuned to produce an appropriate clopping sound, and the horn shall whinny.

  • Instead of testing this type of driverless cars in public roads, a new city is developed as a test environment [rtoz.org] for self driving vehicles.

  • It is easy to confuse other drivers by driving a car with the steering wheel on the opposite side to usual in that country.
    Try driving a UK car in Europe or vice versa with the passenger in the front offside seat holding up a newspaper to read, and count the double-takes from pedestrians and oncoming drivers.
    I don't see how a self-driving car could be much worse.

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