Level 3 Autonomy - can I use my phone?
Discussion
So this is still a bit theoretical because we're right at the start of it, but in much of the literature I see around the new A8 (and Tesla to a lesser extent) and it's proposed level 3 autonomy, there's a bloke reading the paper/a book as the car is driving.
As I understand it the system requires you to be able to re-take control within 4-5 seconds or the car will emergency stop itself, so assuming it's okay to be reading a paper or book, is it ok to be on the phone during driving situations such as this?
Or, alternatively, are the pictures and suggestions from the press wrong, and in reality we'll need to be sitting there arms crossed, still 100% concentrating, when the car is driving itself?
I suspect we're in for a few interesting test cases in the next couple of years!
As I understand it the system requires you to be able to re-take control within 4-5 seconds or the car will emergency stop itself, so assuming it's okay to be reading a paper or book, is it ok to be on the phone during driving situations such as this?
Or, alternatively, are the pictures and suggestions from the press wrong, and in reality we'll need to be sitting there arms crossed, still 100% concentrating, when the car is driving itself?
I suspect we're in for a few interesting test cases in the next couple of years!
Related but not entirely on topic:
If your car is taking you to work and encounters an unexpected closed road, what is the default action? Does it autonomously reroute, or give you the option of selecting one of several alternatives, or give you the option of returning home? If you have to make a choice and you're reading the paper then you might not notice that you have come to a halt.
Could be quite chaotic.
If your car is taking you to work and encounters an unexpected closed road, what is the default action? Does it autonomously reroute, or give you the option of selecting one of several alternatives, or give you the option of returning home? If you have to make a choice and you're reading the paper then you might not notice that you have come to a halt.
Could be quite chaotic.
From what I've been reading today, it seems like your route will be in the sat nav, and 5/3/X miles from destination you'll be forced to retake control, I guess in your scenario the car will be connected to live traffic from Google/Waze/Apple/Whoever and that would detect impending difficulties and hand back control...
As Toltec says.
As the law stands, you are still going to be subject to the requirements of any licensed driver, you have to be awake, sober, and accepting responsibility for the conduct of the vehicle, paying proper care & attention etc.
It seems reasonable to assume that in the long run there will be changes in the law for specific classes of vehicles under particular sets of circumstance. But at present that assumption is purely hypothetical: no-one knows what any revised legal framework will look like in the UK.
As the law stands, you are still going to be subject to the requirements of any licensed driver, you have to be awake, sober, and accepting responsibility for the conduct of the vehicle, paying proper care & attention etc.
It seems reasonable to assume that in the long run there will be changes in the law for specific classes of vehicles under particular sets of circumstance. But at present that assumption is purely hypothetical: no-one knows what any revised legal framework will look like in the UK.
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