The Ministry of Transportation and Communications has pledged to complete and promulgate regulations regarding the management of driverless cars, as well as an amendment to the definition of “car,” by the end of the year.
The ministry’s comments came in light of legal obstacles blocking tests of driverless buses in Taipei and Kaohsiung, primarily due to the applications for tests being denied based on the legal definition of “car.”
Under the Regulations for Road and Traffic Safety (道路交通安全規則), a car is defined as having a steering wheel and requiring a number of emergency exits.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
According to the draft regulations on submitting an application to test driverless vehicles, vehicles are considered to have met the criteria of Society of Automotive Engineers Level 3 autonomous driving if the system installed on driverless buses can automatically control the steering, control the vehicle’s speed and monitor its environment.
The ministry’s Technological Consultation Office Director Wang Mu-heng (王穆衡) said that the draft drew from the experience of Google’s driverless vehicle tests and demands that at least one staff member must be present on a driverless bus during trial operations to provide manual driving services should there be a system failure.
All driverless buses must have equipment onboard that records its driving paths and all buses must be insured in the case of an accident, the ministry said.
There are still no insurance packages offered for driverless vehicles and while the ministry has considered placing the cost of insurance packages at NT$150 million (US$4.98 million), it might prove too steep a price for vehicle testers, Wang said.
The ministry is to hold another meeting next week to determine the amount of insurance packages and to consider alternative ways — such as offering secured assets, or initiating trials at times and locations with less traffic — to lower insurance costs, Wang said.
The timing and locations could be designated by those wishing to test the vehicles, the ministry said, but added that testing must first be conducted in closed areas and on restricted roads before trial would be allowed on unrestricted roads.
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