Breaking the Tyranny of Net Risk Metrics for Automated Vehicle Safety

Abstract

An inquiry into how safe might be “safe enough” for automated vehicle technology must go far beyond the superficial “safer than a human driver” metric to yield an answer that will be workable in practice.  Issues include the complexities of creating a like-for-like human driver baseline for comparison, avoiding risk transfer despite net risk reduction, avoiding negligent computer driver behaviour, conforming to industry consensus safety standards as a basis to justify predictions of net safety improvement, avoiding regulatory problems with unreasonably dangerous specific features despite improved net safety, and avoiding problematic ethical and equity outcomes.  In this paper we explore how addressing these topics holistically will create a more robust framework for establishing acceptable automated vehicle safety.