Research by a company that advises the British car insurance industry has shown that drivers should not assume a self-driving car will be able to avoid all crash scenarios. Its test video shows exactly what can go wrong when such assumptions are made.
Thatcham is a leading vehicle safety and security research company in the UK and has produced a report for the Association of British Insurers saying car companies need to stress the difference between assisted and automated driving. One of its safety experts, Mathew Avery, has warned motorists not to assume they can allow an automated car to be fully in control in "problematic circumstances".
"The motorist may not be aware that they are still required to take back control in problematic circumstances. The capabilities of current road vehicle technologies must not be oversold", he said.
In fairness, even though the car shown is a Tesla it is likely another other advanced self-driving car could have behaved in exactly the same way. Tesla said in a statement following the test:
"Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn’t make the car impervious to all accidents and the issues described by Thatcham won’t be a problem for drivers using Autopilot correctly. The feedback that we get from our customers shows that they have a very clear understanding of what Autopilot is, how to properly use it, and what features it consists of."
Here is the BBC video showing at least one of the limitations that emerged in the Thatcham test.
