As the Department for Transport reveals what you will and won’t be able to do in a self driving car, we take a closer look at the details and experience the technology for ourselves…
These days, there are plenty of companies chasing the dream of cars that can drive themselves. And now the Department for Transport has confirmed some of the changes that it intends to make to The Highway Code in an effort to ensure the new technology is used safely.
Under the plans, when the vehicle is in control, the person behind the wheel will be permitted to view content that is not related to driving – for example, movies – on built-in display screens. However, it will still be illegal to use a mobile phone, because these are deemed to pose a greater risk of distraction and therefore might prevent a driver from noticing that the car requires them to resume control.
This decision has been welcomed by Matthew Avery, chief research strategy officer for Thatcham Research, the organisation responsible for independent Euro NCAP safety testing in the UK. He said: “We are pleased to see that the proposed changes will not permit mobile phone use, and instead only allow use of the vehicle’s infotainment system, because this means the self-driving system can issue a warning as required and bring the driver back into the loop promptly.”
Before autonomous cars can go on sale, the question of who is responsible for any motoring offences also needs to be answered, with the Law Commission for England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission jointly recommending that it shouldn’t be users.
In a recent report to Parliament they proposed that the person in the driver’s seat of a car that is driving itself should be immune from prosecution for any dangerous driving, including speeding and running a red light.
In addition, they said that if an autonomous car is confronted with an issue that it can’t deal with, it should demand that the driver take over in a clear fashion, give them sufficient time to respond and mitigate the risks of them failing to do so by at least coming to a stop.
Under the proposals, in the event of an infraction or collision, the vehicle manufacturer or self-driving software developer would be expected to work with a regulatory body to avoid a repeat occurrence, and could potentially face sanctions.
Just how far has this technology come in recent years, though? Well, to get first-hand – or rather, hands-free – experience, we took the opportunity to test a Lincoln MKZ saloon fitted with a cutting-edge autonomous driving system and a driver monitor called Liv, which has been developed by Swedish company Veoneer.
We tried two versions of the technology: one that drivers should be able to use this year, and a more sophisticated system that’s unlikely to be fitted to production cars until 2025.
First, we had to set up an account with Liv using a mobile phone app. Its purpose is to make sure that every autonomous car user understands how to use their vehicle’s technology.
Then when we got into the car, the system recognised us and prompted us to watch a safety video before allowing us to drive. The system can recognise several people and remembers information about each of them, including whether they have seen the video (so they don’t have to watch it twice).
Veoneer had swapped the Lincoln’s standard steering wheel for one that lights up in different colours to tell the driver which driving mode it’s in. Red indicates that the driver is in control, amber that control is changing between the driver and the autonomous driving system, and green that the car is in control.
To ensure that the driver is constantly monitored, the steering wheel is touch-sensitive so it knows if the driver has taken their hands off the wheel at an unsafe time.
The driver monitoring system it’s linked up to uses camera technology to assess how much attention the driver is paying to the road. It constantly tracks where the driver is looking and will send an alert if they have their eyes off the road for too long.
Ending automation needs to be a quick and easy process, and with Liv all we needed to do was take hold of the steering wheel and look at the road ahead for it to relinquish control and stop automated driving.
The first system we tested was able to drive the car along a motorway but couldn’t cope with unexpected hazards, such as roadworks. We tested it on a stretch of open road with two lanes then on a section with carriageway works.
While the car was driving along the open road, we were able to use the infotainment system to watch a film. However, when I pretended to go to sleep, the driver monitoring system knew I wasn’t alert enough to take over driving if necessary and it sent me a warning to take more notice of what was going on ahead.
When the car spotted the roadworks, it told us we needed to take back control to navigate through them. When we didn’t respond, the system slowed the car down and brought it to a controlled stop in a lay-by.
Importantly, it didn’t simply stop the car in an active lane, which could be dangerous. The process for ending automation is crucial because it will be used by insurance companies to determine who was in control of the car at the time of any accident. The driver monitoring system will provide information on who is in control and how much attention the driver is paying to the road ahead at any time.
We also tried the Lincoln in a more sophisticated self-driving mode – similar to the systems expected to be available from 2025 – that can cope with unexpected obstacles. On the stretch of open road, the car behaved the same as before, letting us take our eyes off the road but not go to sleep or become completely unobservant.
When it spotted the roadworks, it slowed the car down to 15mph (the speed limit that had been set for the section of road) then steered the car through the roadworks before speeding up again. Finally, it took the car through the coned-off section in a controlled and safe manner without us needing to touch the steering wheel or take over the driving at all.
Keyword: What's it like to 'drive' an autonomous car?