DriveSafe cautions government backing for driverless cars.
The government’s decision to back the development of driverless cars has received a cautious response from road safety charity DriveSafe & StaySafe.
The Birmingham-based enterprise has responded to a vow made by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin at the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester by insisting that technology lacks the human predictive touch that enables us to make safety decisions spontaneously.
Fay Goodman, DriveSafe & StaySafe Managing Director, said: “Although technology has made vehicles safer in many ways, I would be cautious about placing total reliance on it. The need for a human safeguard should not be overlooked, especially in the event of the technology failing which – as we all know from the joys of IT – it often does.”
Fay added: “I would find it hard to imagine a time when technology had become sophisticated enough to predict and respond to a possible accident in the same way that an experienced driver would. I also have no doubt that a transition stage in which driverless cars share the roads with driver-operated vehicles would make the roads more dangerous.”