A California company tasked with overseeing autonomous automobile regulation has introduced the addition of recent reporting necessities for sure eventualities, following elevated public and authorities scrutiny surrounding self-driving automobiles lately.
The California Public Utilities Fee (CPUC) shared a press launch this week detailing new reporting necessities for highway incidents, together with collisions and non-collisions that end in stopped automobiles and extra. The choice follows a long-running dialog inside the company about incident reporting, following an accident with a robotaxi final fall that concerned a pedestrian.
“At this time’s determination will present essential info on how you can maintain passengers protected throughout their rides as we roll into a brand new period of extra widespread autonomous automobile use,” mentioned Matthew Baker, CPUC commissioner. “These new reporting necessities are knowledgeable by thousands and thousands of miles of expertise over the previous a number of years and supply a powerful basis for future updates to the CPUC’s laws.”
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Extra particularly, the brand new reporting steerage requires autonomous automobile operators to report “stoppage occasions,” through which driverless automobiles get caught whereas working. Corporations can even be required to report trip-level incident reviews that includes particular particulars on collisions, in addition to non-collisions equivalent to stoppages or site visitors security violations.
The company additionally says that it started growing a framework for the elevated reporting measures final Might, after a Commissioner had filed to formally set up the brand new necessities. The CPUC additionally works intently with the California Division of Motor Autos (DMV) to control the state’s self-driving legal guidelines, with the previous company particularly liable for making certain passenger security and the latter overseeing automobile security and operational integrity.
The brand new necessities observe an accident in San Francisco with a robotaxi owned by Normal Motors (GM) subsidiary Cruise final October, through which a self-driving automobile struck a pedestrian who had been hit by one other automobile with a human driver. Upon influence with the pedestrian, the robotaxi tried to drag over as an emergency response, although it as a substitute went on to pull and pin the pedestrian till authorities arrived.
After the accident, California regulators claimed that Cruise “omitted” and “misrepresented” sure particulars in regards to the robotaxi’s crash response, and the GM-owned firm was required by the CPUC to pay the utmost penalty for delayed reporting of some specifics. Whereas that charge was simply $112,500, Cruise was additionally ordered to pay $1.5 million by the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA) in September for its failure to reveal sure points of the incident.
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