The materialisation of security and safety problems associated with driverless cars need not be inev

The universal usage of driverless cars will reduce road traffic collisions, congestion and the environmental effects of emissions – so why is public perception not more supportive?

In a recent poll by Morning Consult, 43% of those asked stated driverless vehicles not being safe as the reason for why they are not ready to ride in such a vehicle. These views would have been exacerbated by the media’s recent reporting of incidents regarding driverless, autonomous and smart vehicles.

A problem arose when two hackers in the USA remotely disabled the transmission on a Jeep Cherokee by exploiting a flaw in the entertainment system. The story made headlines resulting in Chrysler recalling 1.4 million vehicles for a bug fix. The situation would never have arisen if more time, money and expertise was used to develop a system which is less susceptible to attack. One method would have been to develop the entertainment system separate to the control system so that there is no direct link between the two which would remove the risk of wireless hacking of the controls.

One particular criticism of driverless vehicles is that the LiDAR sensor system often employed has been shown to be vulnerable to attack by cheap and easily obtainable laser pointers which at best may trick the system into thinking an obstacle is straight ahead when in fact it isn’t and therefore cause the car to change lane or swerve which poses hazards. At worst the system could be tricked into thinking that the road ahead is clear, causing speed to increase, when in fact another car is in front which could lead to a serious road traffic collision. A solution to this would be to use a range of technology including LiDAR, radar and cameras so there is always a redundancy should one of the technologies fail. Uber’s driverless car pilot scheme provides 360-degree coverage through the utilisation of 20 cameras and radar sensors

There are certainly security and safety risks associated with driverless cars and their universal implementation but these risks can be greatly mitigated if manufacturers and developers do not see safety as an afterthought but rather invest in securing a technology which is safe from hardware and software problems which pose a threat to pedestrians, cyclists and other road users.

Reece McCoy

#cityplanning #urbanplanning #citymapping #driverless #cars #hack