– By Marc Sibbald –
At the March AFMA Fleet Development Forum in Sydney attendees were treated to two fantastic presentations looking at vehicle safety and autonomous vehicles.
The first one by Robert McDonald, senior engineer at the IAG Research Centre, covered safety technologies and how they were viewed by the insurance industry. The second was a passionate plea from Professor Ann Williamson from the University of NSW not to rush into the blind acceptance of self driving vehicles while ignoring usability and poor vehicle design.
There were issues with technology during the first presentation and several attendees, including the presenter, couldn’t help but laugh and comment about the reliability and safety of computers controlling vehicles when they couldn’t run a PowerPoint slide show. Though I think it was probably user error just like most accidents on the road.
McDonald ran through a technology timeline highlighting the major safety developments in vehicles and provided an insight into the ones that reduced accidents, and which technologies were so successful that they attracted insurance premium reductions to the makes and models they were installed on.
Reversing visibility appears to be the fastest developing area as insurance companies work with manufacturers to reduce the high frequency and huge costs associated with these types of accidents.
Professor Williamson started her presentation almost with too much enthusiasm and lost most of the audience at first. She talked about a recent recall on the Honda CR-V that affected the Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) causing it not to work in all situations. And a study from the UK that claimed 95% of accidents would be eliminated with self driving vehicles.
After providing several references to research papers from around the world that investigated the risks of letting cars drive themselves and other safety technology, she got the audience back and rammed home her point.
It was, accidents will only be reduced if systems are fail safe. And the sellers of the technology and vehicle manufacturers have yet to provide conclusive evidence that they are, and will be for the vehicle’s usable life.
