Legal Protection for the Safe Development of Autonomous Driving
2024-07-10
The National Development and Reform Commission and other departments have recently issued the "Measures for Creating New Consumption Scenarios and Cultivating New Growth Points in Consumption", proposing to steadily promote the commercialization and operation of autonomous driving, create new scenarios for advanced intelligent driving, and carry out pilot applications of "vehicle road cloud integration" for intelligent vehicles. This sends a clear signal that China further supports the development of higher-level autonomous driving. In the current era of rapid technological advancement, the development of automobiles towards electric, intelligent, and shared directions has become a trend. Promoting the commercialization of autonomous driving and creating new scenarios for intelligent driving can not only facilitate citizen travel, improve traffic efficiency, and improve traffic mobility, but also assist in the development of public transportation and logistics industries, and promote the upgrading of technology and industry. However, technology is a double-edged sword that, while bringing convenience to people, may also trigger new risks and challenges, such as the popularization of autonomous driving technology, which may bring safety hazards, data privacy leaks, and ethical dilemmas. Compared with manual driving technology, automatic driving technology is highly dependent on intelligent technologies such as perceptual input, calculation model and road scene data, which brings more challenges to the safe driving of autonomous vehicle. Therefore, a positive legal response is particularly important. Through the normative and guiding role of laws, not only can potential risks be prevented and technology can be developed safely and reliably, but also a stable and predictable institutional environment can be provided for the research and application of autonomous driving technology, promoting fair competition and industrial innovation of autonomous driving technology, thereby promoting the technological progress and innovative development of the entire industry. In order to promote autonomous vehicle on the road legally, in recent years, China has successively issued a number of policies and specifications, such as the Guidelines for the Implementation of Pilot Access and Road Access of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (Trial), which defines the access requirements for autonomous vehicle above L3 (conditional autonomous driving), providing the implementation basis for the market access of related enterprises and products; The autonomous vehicle Transport Safety Service Guide (Trial) proposes to encourage the use of autonomous vehicle in closed scenarios and support the use of autonomous vehicle in transport operations on the premise of ensuring transport safety. At the same time, some places have also issued laws and regulations related to autonomous driving technology, such as the Regulations on the Administration of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which has made full chain legislation on road testing, demonstration applications, access registration, use management, traffic violations and accident handling, legal liability, etc. of autonomous vehicle; The Regulations of autonomous vehicle in Beijing (Draft for Comments) recently released by Beijing has designed regulations and systems from the aspects of management mechanism, industrial innovation and development, infrastructure planning and construction, innovation activity specification, safety guarantee, etc. It can be said that these have provided strong support for the autonomous driving industry. Of course, it should also be recognized that the commercialization of advanced and high-speed autonomous driving still requires time. Safety is the foundation of the commercialization of autonomous driving. Some studies have pointed out that the auto drive system needs at least 11 billion miles (about 17.7 billion kilometers) of testing to meet the safety conditions for mass production. At present, some autonomous driving tests in our country have reached a mileage of 100 million kilometers, but there is still a considerable gap from the goal of 17.7 billion kilometers. Related to safety issues, there is also the issue of risk responsibility division. Although there is currently relevant legislation in China that stipulates the responsibility for autonomous driving accidents, there are problems such as inconsistent regulations and unreasonable responsibility division. In addition, the return on investment is also another important factor that constrains the development of autonomous driving technology and industry. The evolution of autonomous driving algorithm requires a lot of time and money investment. How to guarantee financial support and achieve balance of payments are all practical problems that autonomous vehicle enterprises need to solve. To overcome these bottlenecks and accelerate the commercialization of autonomous driving, it is necessary to introduce more effective industrial promotion policies, provide more financial and various industrial fund support, encourage technological research and development, accelerate application promotion, steadily expand the scale of autonomous driving pilot projects, support autonomous driving simulation testing, and improve the level of perception algorithm training. In addition, it is necessary to further clarify the allocation of responsibilities for autonomous driving accidents, and reasonably allocate the rights, obligations, and responsibilities between different levels of intelligent driving according to the principle of classification and grading. It is worth mentioning that recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments, in accordance with the work arrangement of the "Notice on Carrying out Pilot Work for the Access and Road Traffic of Intelligent Connected Vehicles", identified the first batch of 9 consortia to carry out pilot work for the access and road traffic of intelligent connected vehicles, including passenger cars, buses, and trucks, in 7 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. This marks a crucial step in the large-scale application of advanced intelligent driving technology in China. The release of this document by the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments will further stimulate the motivation of all parties to promote the commercialization and operation of autonomous driving. The application of autonomous driving technology is an important pillar of intelligent manufacturing, an important link in building a strong transportation country, and also an important way to build new quality productivity. We look forward to continuous improvement of legal norms such as industry promotion, market access, safety management, and accident accountability by relevant parties, unified implementation of standards, deep integration of regulations and technology, and the use of governance engines to ignite new driving forces for autonomous driving, ensuring the safety, reliability, and sustainable development of autonomous driving technology, and allowing the public to travel smoothly in more diverse intelligent driving consumption scenarios. (Le Xin She) (Author Zheng Fei, Vice Dean of the School of Law at Beijing Jiaotong University)
Edit：Ying Ying Responsible editor：Shen Chen
Source：http://www.legaldaily.com.cn
Special statement: if the pictures and texts reproduced or quoted on this site infringe your legitimate rights and interests, please contact this site, and this site will correct and delete them in time. For copyright issues and website cooperation, please contact through outlook new era email：lwxsd@liaowanghn.com
Recommended Reading Change it 
Home
