Self-driving cars should be capable of cutting the annual number of traffic deaths in half by the time they?re ready for widespread use on American roads, a top federal official says.
In what may be a preview of the revised guidance on autonomous-vehicle development that government officials are scheduled to unveil next month, Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said he wants concrete safety for the technology. ?I?d actually like to throw the gauntlet down,? he said, speaking on a panel during the TU-Automotive conference in Detroit. ?Start with two times better. We need to set a higher bar if we expect safety to actually be a benefit here as opposed to just an equivalency. While no one wants to say, ?How good is good enough",? I?d actually say, ?Start at two times and then let?s work from there.? ? Industry executives and government officials alike often talk about the promise of reduced traffic deaths in an autonomous era, but rarely put specifics behind those predictions. Rosekind?s comments, while as much rallying cry as projection, offer the most precision to date on how those expectations might take shape.
Previously, there have only been general answers from both public and private leaders on what sort of safety improvement could be achieved and should be expected. On one end, Google executives have stated their goal is to have autonomous vehicles perform better than the human drivers who are responsible for 94 p...