Phil & Junko on AV Safety

This week Phil & Junko talk about what an edge case is, and why autonomous vehicles will need the help of remote human assistants to resolve edge case issues. As robotaxi operations have begun to scale, the public is seeing more incidents in which autonomous vehicles caught in edge cases struggle to get out of the bad situation. The conversation covers:- What is an edge case?- What humans perc...

This week Phil & Junko talk about what it means for Autonomous Vehicle to be safe enough. At a high level, in addition to net statistical safety, acceptable safety also requires an absence of risk hot spots. It’s not about perfection; it’s about acceptably safe: As safe as a human driver on a net statistical basis (accounting for which car, which driver, which road, etc.) Avoiding reckless dri...

In this episode we talk with Kristin Poland, Deputy Director, Office of Highway Safety, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). We cover safety issues with Level 2 supervised automation vehicles in general. The NTSB’s recent findings on a pair of Ford BlueCruise crashes motivate a discussion that covers lidar, false alarms, performance limitations, alcohol impairment, telematics, automated em...

Mr. Otto Nobetter, meet Mr. Jay Walker Historian Peter Norton joins Phil & Junko in a discussion of the surprisingly rich history of the slogan "Safety First." We discuss the history of multiple cycles of adoption and repudiation of the concept of Safety First in industrial and automotive safety. We also cover cautionary tales from the history of safety regulations in other industrie...

Phil & Junko on AV Safety / S1 ep01 Accountability of Remote Assistants