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PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent a letter to driverless vehicle developers demanding a solution to autonomous cars driving into active emergency scenes.
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The agency said it is seeing a “disturbing trend” of driverless cars entering active scenes and warned that some autonomous vehicles cannot safely detect and respond to those situations.
“This is unacceptable. To state it bluntly: an [autonomous vehicle] that cannot safely interact with first responders is a danger to the general public,” the NHTSA said in its .
The letter cited incidents in which driverless cars blocked ambulances and fire crews. The agency is calling for a solution to be discussed by the end of the month.
Phoenix incident
Last month, a Waymo vehicle drove through an active crime scene near Sky Harbor Airport while armed officers searched for an armed suspect in the area. A former police chief called the situation dangerous. A Waymo spokesperson said at the time that safety is fundamental to what the company does.
Expert reaction
Andrew Maynard, a professor of advanced technology transitions at Arizona State University, told Arizona’s Family that the federal government faces challenges in regulating self-driving vehicles.
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“The trouble with any emerging technology is you’re never quite sure what the big risks are going to be, and you never will be sure until you get there,” Maynard said.
“So this is exactly what’s happening with both AI and self-driving vehicles — that we think we’ve got, or the companies think they’ve got everything as good as it can be, and then something happens that sort of blindsides them.”
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