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Independent road safety campaigner encouraging safer drivers on safer roads. Keynote Speaker and Author
My self-driving experience was, if anything, unremarkable. It was everything it should be. No drama. No sensational headline. Just sensible. As most know, I am a huge advocate of technology and perhaps the most critical too, but I was humbled by the time given for presentations, the opportunity for debate and questions. I was encouraged by the conservative and pragmatic language used by the co-founder Paul Newman. His specific focus of only using the transport for a pre-planned route of A to B, i.e going “somewhere”, as opposed to “everywhere” was thoughtful and reasonable. Ninety percent of the conversation was focused on what the technology cannot do, including the limitations. No grandiose claims. No exaggerated statements. I was also positively surprised by the number of times the word ‘safety’ was mentioned throughout the day. Whilst the day only left me with more questions around systems thinking, ethical considerations and user acceptance, the experience also reinforced the need for a Road Safety Strategy - a pivotal report that will lay the foundation towards the future of self-driving vehicles. Cars and in particular cars and technology were my son Dev’s passion. How could I forget spending every Sunday making a feast in the kitchen while he and his Dad watched Top Gear repeats with full commentary, calling me in every two seconds to show me something on TV. I can only imagine him saying something along the lines of, “this is pretty awesome mummy”. Thank you Oxa for your most kind invitation. An invitation I could not refuse. An experience I will never forget. And to Nick Reed for sharing this experience with me, as an esteemed expert and contributor to the AV Bill, as well as Neil Kennett for kindly organising the day. #RoadSafety #DevsLaw Lilian Greenwood Sarah Sharples PAVE United Kingdom Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom Suzanne T. Bryn Balcombe
Great to see you involved in this exciting development.
Hey thanks, it was a high quality conversation wasn't it! The benefits for self-driving technology are, I believe, manifest. But they are so easily eclipsed but not spending enough time on explaining how you explain. And then explain how you are going to deal with the ethical, technical and safety questions that are every bit as real and thought provoking as the deep tech. Indeed my view is that the deep-tech needs to orient itself to answer those questions at the same time as 1) providing a credible and near term path to scaled commercialisation, 20 being ever-green (our best Ideas are always ahead of us) and above all 3) bring all stakeholders along literally and metaphorically along for the ride. To my mind, that is you Meera, your friends, your family, your friends' friends, then to society , legislators, regulators, users, and absolutely..... non-users. You are all co-founders.
It was a pleasure to host you Meera Naran MBE along with Nick Reed and Neil Kennett too. Really enjoyed the in depth discussion on road safety and the positive contribution automated driving can make when deployed within regulatory frameworks requiring in-use monitoring that ensure levels of explainability that the public have come to expect from 'blackbox' flight recorders used in the aviation industry 🛩 🚌 🤖 😇
Thanks Meera for sharing, I like you am a huge advocate of technology, if it wasn’t for AEB I wouldn’t be here today. As for the AV’s anything that can remove the major factor in collision’s has to be a good thing, Human Error- driving safely needs 100% concentration but vehicles are full of technology that distracts you, therefore collisions will always happen if we don’t address the problem.
Glad it went well Meera. There is a lot of understandable scepticism about self-driving technology and the transition to it's introduction will take time and constant refinement, especially where recognition of the unpredictability of road user groups are concerned.
What a great opportunity for you to have experienced! Dev would have loved this. I love the focus on what technology can do for our safety on our roads, beyond the quirky-only features we typically learn about when we look at cars!
I am really happy to watch this exciting development.
Nice post, balanced and well written.
We are amazed at how often the roads are laid out to defeat the technology - the signs and layouts seem to be set up to reduce the vehicle's ability to help make the trip safer.
Thank you Meera, it was an honour to host your visit and we look forward to welcoming you back again soon.