Scotland is ‘open for business’ when it comes to the testing, trialling and refining of autonomous vehicles – according to the country’s transport minister.
On 30 December, the Scottish Government launched a new plan, designed to keep it at the forefront of developments in the connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) industry.
The CAV Roadmap outlines how Transport Scotland will influence, engage with and support initiatives to establish CAV trials – while also working with business to identify opportunities to utilise CAV, intelligent mobility and last-mile delivery technologies.
The roadmap also explains how Transport Scotland will ensure its infrastructure is ready for CAVs, through future road investments.
Michael Matheson, cabinet secretary for transport, says autonomous technology has the potential to bring transformative change to peoples’ lives – including when it comes to safety.
Mr Matheson said: “I am delighted to launch the CAV Roadmap and deliver one of the key commitments from our Programme for Government.
“It sets out how Scotland can play a key role in this fast-moving industry, as well as the steps we need to take to unlock these opportunities.
“I intend Scotland to be at the forefront of these technologies. We are ‘open for business’ to test, demonstrate and pilot autonomous vehicle trials.
“The deployment of connected and automated vehicles has the potential to bring transformative change to peoples’ lives – not just in how we travel, but in how we work, where we live, the environment, and safety.”
Who is responsible when an autonomous HGV shunts you up the rear end because it missed the ‘X’ sign on a closed live lane of a pseudo-smart motorway, and turns you into tomato puree because it failed to make the connections in it’s primitive tiny little world of symbols and mathematical constructs to represent and ever changing environment with no understanding of the real World?
Who has to stand up in Court and face the consequences or will we be prosecuting Intel Processors in the future or an avitar that represents a business empire?
These vehicles at best are only assist devices but due to their limited capacity to make sense of the surroundings and cope with sensor failure or dirty salty road spray or want a rodent may do when crossing a motorway…it expects a now dopey non situationally aware ‘driver’ to suddenly take over the business of driving to prevent a pile up and fatalities!
Graham Tong, Edingburgh
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