For those who cannot drive for reason of physical health or disability, a fully autonomous vehicle has obvious potential benefits, enabling these groups to enjoy the same freedom of movement that the rest of us enjoy.
Other arguments normally advanced in favour of autonomous cars revolve around postulated reductions in road death and injury rates, and the productive use of the time freed up for what would otherwise be the driver.
There are sources that claim large gains to the UK economy. A report by KPMG (2015) claims that by 2030 the gain will be £51 billion per year, with 25% of cars as conditionally or fully autonomous (their ‘level 4 and 5’), and 75% at what they term Level 3. The projected annual gains by 2040 are claimed at £121 billion.
Level 3 is defined as :
‘Driver does not need to monitor the dynamic driving task nor the driving environment at all times; must always be in a position to resume control’.
‘system performs .. driving task in defined use case. Recognizes performance limits and requests driver to resume the dynamic driving task with sufficient time margin’
Just a small question – if the driver is not required to monitor the driving environment, how can the driver be assumed to be capable of safely resuming control ?
The economic gains are said to come from reduction in travel time and accidents, improvements to the profitability in telecoms, logistics, insurance, retail and media, allowing vehicle occupants to make better use of their time, and the creation of 320,000 additional jobs in the UK, including 25,000 jobs in the motor industry.
Level 3 cars are assumed to be available from 2017 onwards, with level 4 and 5 cars from 2025 onwards. These assumptions seem to be very naïve, requiring that within 1 to 2 years there will be vehicles proven and certified to be safe to operate without human monitoring running on at least some roads in the UK.
The report also assumes that road accident rates will be halved by 2030 due to the adoption of autonomous cars, but in ascribing this value to the introduction of autonomous cars this implicitly assumes that no improvement in road safety is otherwise possible. This is a completely false assumption – in the last decade road death rates in the UK have more or less halved, and there is no reason to suppose that further progress cannot be made without autonomous cars.
It is very hard to see these projections as little more than wishful thinking, overstating the rate of market penetration and probably also the benefits that might accrue to the economy.
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