You can doubt the safety of autonomous driving, but big data tells you: it does drive better than you

The automotive industry is going through a transition period from L2-level intelligent assisted driving to L3-level autonomous driving. The era of intelligent driving is coming. Although every smart driving accident will cause widespread discussion and concern about autonomous driving, the numbers do not lie. Autonomous driving has greatly reduced the incidence of traffic accidents. It is entering a critical maturity point in terms of technology, testing, laws and regulations. Major automotive countries represented by China, the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea are competing to seize the commanding heights of the industry and promote each other, forming an existing autonomous driving social governance model with national characteristics and mutual tolerance. The day is not far when humans will officially hand over control of vehicles to machines.

"Autonomous driving vehicles can effectively avoid 80% of car accidents."

On December 16, China Automotive Industry Center, Tongji University, and Baidu jointly released the "White Paper on Traffic Safety of Autonomous Driving Vehicles". The above conclusion is reached through a comparative analysis of authoritative technical demonstrations and actual autonomous driving accidents.

The release of this article uses data to tell the public a basic fact: Although autonomous driving at this stage is not 100% accident-free, autonomous driving is far safer than human driving, and there is sufficient data to support it.

On the other hand, as lidar is implemented in mass-produced passenger cars, cameras are becoming clearer and driving algorithms are iteratively developing every day. Compared with individual changes, they are easily affected by various uncertain factors such as emotions and states. Compared with humans, the advantages of autonomous driving will become increasingly prominent.

According to the "Road Traffic Accident Statistical Annual Report" of the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security of China, from 2017 to 2019, an average of 231,900 traffic accidents occurred nationwide each year, with an average annual death toll of 63,000, and another 240,000. Non-fatal injuries. Road traffic accidents have become the second leading cause of death among children nationwide, and as the only non-disease factor, it ranks among the top ten causes of death in China.

The risk of traffic accidents mainly comes from human drivers.

Traffic accidents caused by human subjective errors account for 79.9%.

According to passenger car accident data from the China Automotive Center Vehicle Safety Identification Technology Institute (CIDAS), from 2011 to 2021, autonomous vehicles can effectively avoid 80% of accidents caused by human driving.

Therefore, the white paper believes that compared with the limited capabilities of humans, the perception function of autonomous driving can detect more than 90% of accidents in advance.

Self-driving cars can effectively avoid accidents caused by speeding, rear-end collisions, violations of traffic rules and human defects. It can effectively reduce the occurrence of accidents by more than one third.

In other words, autonomous driving will strictly follow traffic rules to drive, achieve early perception, and perform data decision-making process operations.

It is conceivable that in high-speed scenes at night, autonomous driving will detect the vehicle ahead in advance and maintain a distance between the vehicles in strict accordance with safety standards. The probability of an accident will be far lower than that of a human driver.

Therefore, self-driving cars can maximize their awareness of other traffic participants and reasonably maintain a safe distance from other motor vehicles. At this point, the cause of accidents where humans fail to notice other participants and keep a safe distance can be effectively improved.

In the previous article, we learned that even if a traffic accident occurs, the risk of injury and death will be greatly reduced with the intervention of autonomous driving. At this stage, it is a fact that autonomous driving performs better than humans.

Autonomous driving is entering a critical point of maturity

Facts show that autonomous driving is gaining wider application, which has been recognized by enough cases.

The commercialization of autonomous driving should be divided into the fields of passenger cars, commercial vehicles and work vehicles.

Original equipment manufacturers have begun the process of L3 autonomous driving in the passenger car market. And L2-level intelligent driving assistance functions are also close to becoming popular. Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in the first half of this year that "the market share of cars with L2 intelligent driving assistance functions has exceeded 20%."

December 10, 2021 is a day worth remembering in the history of autonomous driving. German regulators officially released autonomous driving under L3 conditions. In the field of commercial vehicles and work vehicles, especially in specific scenarios such as retail, robotaxi, mining trucks, airports, and logistics, L4 autonomous vehicles or unmanned vehicles have been deployed in specific places such as docks, airports, and graded open roads.

2021 has entered the critical point for the official legalization of autonomous driving

On March 24, 2021, the Ministry of Public Security of China issued public opinions on the "Road Traffic Safety Law", clarifying the road traffic safety law Requirements related to testing, road access of vehicles with autonomous driving functions, and liability sharing for violations and accidents. The regulation gives legal status to autonomous driving systems and road testing and establishes a legal environment for large-scale commercial use of autonomous driving.

The violations and accident liability of autonomous driving will soon be included in the Road Traffic Safety Law to further improve the governance model of autonomous driving.

Among them, Article 155 stipulates: Self-driving vehicles shall conduct road tests on closed roads and venues, obtain temporary driving licenses, and conduct road tests at designated times, areas, and routes in accordance with regulations. Those who pass the test can produce, import and sell in accordance with relevant laws and regulations. This clears the way for the production and sale of autonomous vehicles.

Of course, at the level of laws and regulations, there are currently no comprehensive regulations on the division of responsibilities for autonomous driving accidents in various countries around the world. The "Road Traffic Safety Law of the People's Republic of China" and the "Implementation Regulations of the Road Traffic Safety Law of the People's Republic of China" also do not cover the safety of autonomous driving. At this stage, traffic violations and accidents during road tests and demonstrations should be handled in accordance with existing laws.

However, given that Germany has conditionally released L3 level autonomous driving, OEMS will bear legal responsibilities in the autonomous driving state.

Consumers need to be open to understanding the vision of "zero casualties" depicted by autonomous driving

Autonomous driving described the vision of "zero casualties" for humans in early publicity, which to a certain extent gave the public caused misunderstanding.

In recent years, accidents related to autonomous driving are different from the public’s understanding and understanding of ADAS functions and fully autonomous driving on the one hand. On the other hand, people’s expectations for autonomous driving are too high.

People accept autonomous driving, which means we have to accept a machine that makes mistakes. Under this concept, humans have set the responsibility of the OEM or the intelligent driving system, and have corresponding compensation standards.

Compulsory traffic accident liability insurance of RMB 5 million (USD 746,000) has been set for self-driving road testing in corresponding regions in China. For tests requiring manned demonstration applications, seat insurance and personal accident insurance must be purchased for passengers, as well as other necessary commercial insurance. Commercial insurance sets safety standards for self-driving cars to enter regular public roads, meaning liability for accidents between humans and machines is economically defined.

Recognizing that machines will make mistakes and admitting that even future L5 autonomous driving may not guarantee 100% zero casualties is a prerequisite for humans to get along with autonomous vehicles. Under this premise, humans will eventually discover that traveling by machine can greatly improve safety.

Therefore, "zero casualties" will always be the highest goal pursued by autonomous driving, but it will not be 100% achieved.

At the end of last year, Germany launched a competition to open the L3 autonomous driving governance model, and Mercedes-Benz became the world's first legally protected OEM to mass-produce autonomous vehicles. Now that this step has been taken, transportation has entered a new era.

Currently, autonomous driving is entering a critical maturity point in terms of technology, testing, manufacturing, laws and regulations. Major automobile countries represented by China, the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea are competing to seize the commanding heights of the industry. They are also promoting each other to form a unique and interoperable self-driving social governance model.

Currently, autonomous driving technology has become the main track for technological competition between different countries. The international governance model around smart cars is also taking shape in the competition. For customers, it is the best outcome for self-driving cars in various countries to follow the same standards.

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