The autonomous shuttle bus, which started operating in Las Vegas since 2017, has been stopped due to a contact accident with a truck within an hour of the start of driving. Of course, the accident itself did not have any minor injuries, but since it was an autonomous vehicle, the US National Transportation Safety Commission NTSB conducted a detailed investigation.
After a year and a half of the accident, the NTSB barely found two causes of the accident. First, the truck that touched the autonomous bus did not stop in its normal position. It is the same as the cause that was originally reported. The truck driver moved the truck without confirming the presence of the bus, resulting in contact.
However, the truck was not speeding up, and the truck was turning largely to enter the entrance of the warehouse to change direction. Usually, no vehicle goes close to a truck that does this. Here is the second cause of the accident.
The operator who was on the self-driving bus detected the danger and did not immediately switch to manual driving. The truck driver thought that there were no vehicles approaching within that range while reversing the truck. As the truck was moving differently than usual, it would not have approached if it were a normal car.
However, the self-driving bus was not programmed to stop as it got closer to the truck, whether or not this situation was assumed. The bus operator pressed the emergency stop button when the distance to the truck was approaching 3m, but not enough distance to avoid contact.
In the investigation, the bus operator thought he had to switch to manual driving while approaching the truck. However, it had to be switched by operating a computer rather than the driver’s seat of an autonomous shuttle bus. While approaching the truck, the computer was placed in a space opposite the vehicle operator’s location. The operator said he requested the developer to have access to the computer at any time after the accident.
Usually the NTSB is not involved in light contact accidents. However, it was noted that this time it was an autonomous vehicle. In the report, NTSB explained that pilot test runs of autonomous vehicles are occurring everywhere in the U.S. The development is being monitored to ensure that they understand that the potential safety impact of autonomous vehicles has unintended consequences. did. Related information can be found here .