Self-driving cars UK Discussion

[pgkevet]

7 secs at 60mph is over 200 yards. Add braking distance 60 yards and reaction time when roused and it means the car had to be competent to cope with any issues 300 yards ahead.

 

[MickyLee3]

Yup, I agree.

It seems logical that the less interventions that are required, the less prepared the human component will be to make them.

If it ends up in a situation where your commute is done fully autonomously, and only exceptional events cause it to require intervention, then it follows that people will naturally become more and more complacent, and "tune out" of the experience of travelling in a car entirely. The driver will effectively become a passenger in terms of attitude.

This will be compounded further still by a desire by some, possibly many, to explicitly opt out of driving and do something else instead. They might try and sit in the passenger seat and put something on the drivers seat to trick the car into thinking someone is there, or they might try and read a book, or be totally engrossed in their phone, not even watching the road. I would hope the cabin camera stops all of that, but we'll see.

So yeah, I'm in agreement that there will be an inflection point at which the tech is good enough that people get complacent, but not good enough to allow it.

I ordered it at $12K in the hope that 10 years from now it will be much improved and I will not be. I'll be 84 years old.

 

[Roy B]

Some cyclists break the rules, most do not. Some car drivers break the rules, most do not.

Right. It's hard to tell whether the proportion of cyclists who jump red lights is lower or higher than the proportion of drivers that break the speed limit. It's quite easy to convince yourself that in both cases it's the majority, but I'm not sure that's true.

We tend to notice the rule-breakers more than those who don't, which skews our perception...

 

[Radon9]

Dragging things back to FSD in the UK: now we have a new Transport Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, anyone know if she’s pro or anti self-drive technology? Where is she on the Luddite scale and does her appointment reduce or increase the time to me getting a FSD that does something useful?

 

[joexn]

I wish there were some option to opt out of UNECE regs. Bring on some personal responsibility and accountability!

There's a guy on here @joexn - who had/has access to a car that has either been rooted, or is "in testing" over here, and it can be summoned from across a car park like in the States, perfectly fine.

If my car wasn't under warranty I'd be seriously interested in the possibility of modifying the "ece_restrictions" and "eu_vehicle" flags in the configuration that basically lock our cars so badly down. Obviously it wouldn't mean we'd get FSD beta, but even so.

View attachment 847814

Weirdly I didn't get a notification for this tag but yeah, car works completely fine and as expected without the ECE restrictions. If it wasn't for the ECE regulations, our cars would be identical to the Australian ones (RHD & not bound by UNECE so unrestricted).

 

[randompixel]

This reached the Kings Speech today.

The most notable points:

• Implementation of "Level 4 autonomy on UK roads"
• Implements previous four-year review of self driving legislation by law commission
• Liability will be on the company rather than the user/driver when self driving
• Failure will result in fines, requirements to take corrective action, and suspension of operation. Criminal offences will apply in serious cases.
• Companies will have to reach strict safety requirements before being authorised
• Only once met and can follow traffic rules without the need for human monitoring or control will vehicles be classed as self driving
• Only vehicles that reach the above standards will be allowed to be marketed as "self driving"
• Local Authorities to digitise local regulations to a central platform to give real time information on road closures and parking bays, creating a digital map of the road network to be fed back to self-driving vehicles.

Driverless cars move closer to reality in King’s Speech | RAC Drive

The future of driving in the UK was the highlight of today’s King’s Speech, where plans for an Automated Vehicles Bill was announced.

www.rac.co.uk

Government announces self-driving legislation in King’s Speech

An Automated Vehicles Bill has been announced in the King’s Speech, one of 21 Bills which the Government says will be its priority over the coming year or so.

www.fleetnews.co.uk

Driverless buses and delivery vehicles to get green light

Buses, grocery deliveries and farm machinery will be operating autonomously by the end of the decade under new legislation brought forward today. Rishi Sunak will use the King’s Speech to pave the way for the introduction of “level four” fully-autonomous vehicles on the roads.Such vehicles do not re

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[randompixel]

The Law Commissions report https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812...ds/sites/30/2022/01/AV-Summary-25-01-22-2.pdf

It deviates from SAE in when they expect users to take over

Some highlights from the PDF

• Self driving vehicles need to be able to handle a tyre blowout or respond to emergency vehicles (common), but don't have to deal with a meteor strike or plane landing on the road (rare)
• "If the human in the driving seat is no longer responsible for the driving task, it follows that they should be allowed to engage in non-driving related activities" nudge nudge wink wink
• "Following the UK’s departure from the EU, Great Britain acquired more control over the way vehicles are approved. We recommend that manufacturers who wish to include an ADS in their vehicles should have a choice. They may obtain systems approval at international level, in accordance with a UNECE regulation, from any UNECE approval authority. Alternatively, they can apply for domestic approval under a new domestic AV technical approval scheme. In either case, the whole vehicle will need to receive the new GB whole vehicle approval that has replaced EU whole vehicle approval for most motor vehicles."
• No Robotaxis before a study into the impact on less able groups to not have someone to help them in the car
• "...some forms of unauthorised vehicle taking may not be covered. An example would be where a group of people picked up an automated pizza delivery vehicle and put it in a ludicrous place, such as the top of a bus shelter, where it could no longer function. Under the current law, this would not appear to be a criminal offence."

 

[Tony Hoyle]

Some of that sounds like what the UNECE is working on.. I remember reading things about liability for autonomous vehicles a while back, so we're just adoping some form of that. Which makes sense I guess, since we really don't want to be that much different to everyone else.. manufacturers aren't going to create cars for the UK only.

The last one is kinda old (EU 2015/962 which is pre brexit legisltation).. We're just late on it.

 

[NewbieT]

So ‘FSD’ gets a UK re-brand.

“digitise local regulations to a central platform” now that sounds sensible. No doubt we’ll make a hash of it. Can we have a central portal for all of the road charging schemes toll etc too.

 

[randompixel]

* Basic Autopilot
* Highway Autopilot
* City Streets Autopilot ?

Of course, I couldn't find any mention of running L2 automation on city streets in any of the documents. I assume that'd be covered under existing laws and regulations regarding liability, driving offences or marketing.

 

[randompixel]

“digitise local regulations to a central platform” now that sounds sensible. No doubt we’ll make a hash of it. Can we have a central portal for all of the road charging schemes toll etc too.

No doubt it'd be farmed out to whichever Tory donor puts enough in the coffers and be years late.

Seeing it is meant to harmonise all the parking apps to a single backend I wouldn't be surprised if they covered tolls as well.

 

[Zilla91]

This reached the Kings Speech today.

The most notable points:

• Implementation of "Level 4 autonomy on UK roads"
• Implements previous four-year review of self driving legislation by law commission
• Liability will be on the company rather than the user/driver when self driving
• Failure will result in fines, requirements to take corrective action, and suspension of operation. Criminal offences will apply in serious cases.
• Companies will have to reach strict safety requirements before being authorised
• Only once met and can follow traffic rules without the need for human monitoring or control will vehicles be classed as self driving
• Only vehicles that reach the above standards will be allowed to be marketed as "self driving"
• Local Authorities to digitise local regulations to a central platform to give real time information on road closures and parking bays, creating a digital map of the road network to be fed back to self-driving vehicles.

Driverless cars move closer to reality in King’s Speech | RAC Drive

The future of driving in the UK was the highlight of today’s King’s Speech, where plans for an Automated Vehicles Bill was announced.

www.rac.co.uk

Government announces self-driving legislation in King’s Speech

An Automated Vehicles Bill has been announced in the King’s Speech, one of 21 Bills which the Government says will be its priority over the coming year or so.

www.fleetnews.co.uk

Driverless buses and delivery vehicles to get green light

Buses, grocery deliveries and farm machinery will be operating autonomously by the end of the decade under new legislation brought forward today. Rishi Sunak will use the King’s Speech to pave the way for the introduction of “level four” fully-autonomous vehicles on the roads.Such vehicles do not re

www.thetimes.co.uk

Sounds like bad news for Tesla

 

[Fursty Ferret]

I don’t think this will change anything — this government has announced many things that go to consultation but never make it into law, usually when an opinion poll suggests that a decrepit pensioner might not like the idea.

 

[NewbieT]

* Basic Autopilot
* Highway Autopilot
* City Streets Autopilot ?

Of course, I couldn't find any mention of running L2 automation on city streets in any of the documents. I assume that'd be covered under existing laws and regulations regarding liability, driving offences or marketing.

Of course, none of the current Tesla implementations are L2. They’re alll just driver assistance. I.e we’re liable.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Of course, none of the current Tesla implementations are L2. They’re alll just driver assistance. I.e we’re liable.

All Tesla stuff is L2, I think you’ve just got the numbering wrong as your description is right.

The legislation proposals seem to start at L3 which is where accountability transfers to the car/manufacturer. I think the point being made was there’s nothing that addresses the current restrictions on L2 to allow us to have something nearer the FSDb city streets like the US get. If that’s true, Tesla are following the wrong roll out path trying to boil the ocean whereas the Merc approach of a narrow, focused, specific L3 implementation and then expand from that is one the legislation seems to enable better

 

[GRiLLA]

" the whole vehicle will need to receive the new GB whole vehicle approval that has replaced EU whole vehicle approval for most motor vehicles."

As per the consultation the only purpose in GB type approval was to reject Euro 6e because our government doesn't want stricter emission and safety standards. While this is ludicrous in itself, at least manufacturers will still have to build to that standard to sell in the EU so it's likely to make no difference to us, other than perhaps software changes. Divergence is likely to increase costs further for UK customers.

Having a UK specific standard for self driving might help our local companies building self driving get cars on the road sooner and so assist their development, I doubt our market is remotely big enough for any global manufacturers to bother. Tesla can't even put the wheel on the right side for new models.

Updating GB type approval for road vehicles

www.gov.uk

 

[Mrklaw]

that local authority database of closed roads being distributed to self driving systems - pie in the sky and maybe happens in the future but irrelevant for now and self driving systems shouldn't need it anyway

but hopefully this opens up to at least a 'bluecruise' type of thing with extended, eyes-off self driving on approved motorway sections. That'd be 80% of what I'd want anyway tbh