The Challenges of Partially Automated Driving

I am pleased to say that my paper with Steve Casner and Ed Hutchins, The Challenges of Partially Automated Driving, has been published in the Communications of the ACM. The creation of most-automated vehicles provides major challenges for us. For a long time I( have argued that the most dangerous part of the transition from manual to full automation is when the job is mostly complete -- which is precisely where we are today.

The argument has been made many times. first by Lisanne Bainbridge in 1983 -- 33 years ago! I made the argument in 1990. Nothing has changed.

In this paper, we once again warn that partial automation lulls drivers into a false sense of security. Moreover, people are especially bad at maintaining vigilance and a sense of situation awareness for long periods when nothing is happening or when their assistance is not needed. In the year 2014 (the latest year for which statistics are available), there was roughly one death for every 100 million vehicle miles. One per 100 million miles. Even so, there were over 33 million deaths in the United States plus roughly 1 million injuries. American drove almost 3 trillion miles.