You are here
Kids In Autonomous Vehicles Letter From Chair
Letter from Chair, Blue Ribbon Panel on Children in Autonomous Vehicles
October 2018 Road safety colleagues ― This is an exciting time for the road safety community. Research tells us that a significant number of motor vehicle crashes are tied to human error, but in recent years, we’ve seen enormous progress in trying to remove that from the equation. In its most exciting form, we’re witnessing the emergence of self-driving cars (or autonomous vehicles), which offer great potential to reduce injuries and save lives as well as enhance mobility for diverse groups in our society. While not yet available to consumers, driverless cars are hardly something off in the distant future. As of June 2018, 29 states and the District of Columbia have enacted legislation related to the testing of autonomous vehicles and governors in ten states have issued executive orders. Automated vehicles are very much a part of our current world. As dozens of cities across the country host and plan pilot tests, industry leaders are identifying their tremendous potential and discussing some of the concerns and issues that might arise. But one thing has been absent from the conversation so far: An understanding about the unique needs of children, our most vulnerable passengers, when it comes to this emerging form of transportation. As the leader of a nonprofit organization that has spent 30 years working to keep children safe on the road, I knew we needed a collaborative effort to address the risks that our youngest passengers might face as they begin riding in potentially driverless cars. And we need to make that effort now, during the development and testing phase – not when automated driving systems or driverless vehicles are the norm on our streets, roads and highways. With this in mind, Safe Kids Worldwide convened a Blue Ribbon Panel on Children in Autonomous Vehicles, which met for the first time on April 20, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. We invited nationally recognized child safety advocates and transportation experts to brainstorm, collaborate and ultimately to develop the first-ever set of recommendations to keep children safe as passengers in automated driving systems or autonomous vehicles. With this report, I am proud to present the nation’s first call to action and set of recommendations to ensure the safety of children in autonomous vehicles. As you’ll see in the following pages, the panel recognized that it is imperative to call on all autonomous vehicle developers and component designers to evaluate and ensure their products are created to protect child passengers. The panel identified many areas of need and developed a set of eight recommendations across policy, advocacy, enforcement, communications, research and development arenas. The collective traffic safety community will see immediate and longer-term opportunities to act on these recommendations. Safe Kids Worldwide is committed to putting the work of the panel into action. In the months ahead, we hope to facilitate an ongoing national conversation about these important recommendations our panel has put forth. As I said, this is an exciting time for the road safety community. It’s also the right time to make sure that the needs of our children stay top of mind. Torine Creppy |
