Consultant for truckers, insurance companies and lawyers
Assist truck drivers, insurance companies, and lawyers to understand how autonomous vehicles (AVs) will impact their businesses in a rapidly changing R&D environment. My experience is based on 15 years of U.S. Department of Transportation contract research for driver-assistance systems.
Autonomous vehicle expectations: improved safety, reduced congestion, enhanced comfort
Expectations based on satisfying the following three fundamental safety requirements for autonomous vehicles:
- Show that an AV fleet has a smaller collision probability than a manually operated fleet to demonstrate AV superior safety.
- Demonstrate that average drivers can transition from autonomous to manual driving mode in just a few seconds, not 20-30 seconds as shown in driver simulator studies.
- Prove that AV cyber security breaches will not significantly affect AV safety.
Outcome of unresolved obstacles: driver anxiety, litigation opportunities, and insurance underwriting uncertainties.
Read about my consulting services by selecting the next arrow or
review my qualifications. Please contact me at
jeff@jheversonconsulting.com or call 339-227-0585
Consultant Services
The autonomous vehicle landscape is a rapidly changing kaleidoscope of interwoven issues related to technologies, systems, vehicle insurance companies, and lawyers. This landscape could change considerably in just a few months. To help your organization navigate the aforementioned issues, I offer the following research and writing services:
- Support trucking to navigate autonomous vehicle safety issues with Congress, their staffers, and the public. This support could be in the form of strategic plan inputs, white papers, brochures, proposals, and newspaper editorials
- Assist automobile insurance companies define and quantify autonomous vehicle risk factors, such as determining accident predictor variables for different autonomous vehicle technologies; ascertain the effect of mandatory rating factors; assess the SAE vehicle automation levels on insurance costs, among others.
- Work with lawyers to determine autonomous vehicle product liability/litigation, allocation of fault between vehicle and driver, as well negligence liability. These topics would vary across the spectrum of autonomous vehicle systems and technologies.
Photo: Dr. Everson receiving a Tibbett’s award from Senator John Kerry for a project regarding collision warning systems for inner-city transit buses. Project awarded by the Federal Transit Administration.
Comparing Autonomous and Manually Driven Vehicle Safety Performance
This comparison is based on a calculation of crash probabilities (i.e., risk) for manually operated vehicle fleets. These probabilities are compared to crash probabilities for autonomous vehicle fleets.
An autonomous vehicle fleet is safer than a manually operated vehicle fleet if the crash probability of the former is less than the latter.
Fleet size samples of vehicles are required to determine whether there is any statistically significant difference in safety performance between AVs and manually operated vehicles.
This approach can start soon after commencement of autonomous vehicle production for Property Damage Only (PDO) crashes.
These results will be important for Federal and state regulatory policy officials, insurance companies, law firms, trucking organizations and the general public. Please contact me for a copy of my paper on this subject (
jeff@jheversonconsulting.com).
Pictured: Examples of human-machine display modalities used by Dr. Everson for a collision warning system regarding inner city transit buses. Project awarded by the Federal Transit Administration and resulted in a Small Business Innovation Research Tibbett’s award to Dr. Everson.
Long Delay Times Transitioning from Autonomous to Manual Driving
How long would it take to transition from autonomous to manual driving? Sooner or later, the need for that transition will happen due to hardware malfunctions, software bugs and cyber security breaches.
There are three driver simulation studies (
1,
2,
3) demonstrating that transition times required a few tens of seconds for average drivers to regain full vehicle control.
According to
Chris Schwarz, PhD, University Transportation Center, University of Iowa, “There is a 15 to 25 second gap between physical takeover and visual attention/stabilization during which the driver may be vulnerable to missing a safety-critical event at an inopportune moment.”
- Truck drivers: Suppose you are asleep in the cab berth while proceeding autonomously. How fast can you respond to an alert for resumption of manual driving?
- Insurance companies: During this transition period, who is liable if an accident occurs? The driver? The autonomous vehicle?
- Lawyers: To what extent is product liability determined in this case?
Pictured: A laboratory feasibility experiment using a laser to measure roadway friction between a tire and pavement. Project awarded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to Dr. Everson.)
Controlling Cyber Security Breaches for Autonomous Vehicles
Sen. Edward Markey (D–Mass.) wrote to 16 major Automobile manufactures inquiring about their cyber security measures. Sobering findings from his inquiry include: Nearly 100% of cars on the market include wireless technologies that could pose vulnerabilities to hacking or privacy intrusions; Most automobile manufacturers were unaware of or unable to report on past hacking incidents
There is the celebrated case of a Cherokee Jeep being hacked remotely over a distance of 10 miles during 2015. The remote hackers gained control of the transmission, radio, windshield wipers and A/C.
The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute physically hacked a truck and school bus. It is only a question of time until remote hacking occurs for these vehicles.
With the advent of autonomous vehicles, there will be many more points of entry to facilitate remote hacking. That could lead to hijacking expensive cargo and terrorist threats from state actors (e.g., North Koreans).
- Truck drivers: What level of cyber protection do you require?
- Insurance companies: Same question
- Lawyers: Same question
Pictured: A Ford Taurus, the same model that Dr. Everson transformed into a high fidelity mathematical model for computer simulation of a crash warning system to avoid roadway departure accidents. Program was awarded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
