WASHINGTON, D.C. – Amidst growing public questions and concerns about current and future automated vehicle (AV) technology, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) is pleased to announce that it has joined
Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (PAVE).
This new partnership with PAVE members, including the National Safety Council, AAA, automakers, technology companies and other key safety leaders, will help leverage State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) to bring realistic, factual safety information about AVs to policymakers, the media and the traveling public.
“We need to work together to raise public awareness of what AV technology can and can’t do,” said Jonathan Adkins, GHSA Executive Director. “New technologies can help us on the road to zero deaths, but only if everyone understands, trusts and wants to safely use these features.”
A growing body of evidence suggests that the public has limited knowledge of AV technology and what the operator’s responsibilities should be, and many motorists report that they don’t want to use automated features. This lack of understanding and enthusiasm is in part because of the many mixed, confusing or inaccurate messages about automation.
“Seeing is believing,” said Adkins. “GHSA is encouraged that PAVE is sponsoring hands-on workshops for the public to personally experience and learn about the safe use of AVs, and the states, through GHSA, will be able to potentially bring these workshops to wider audiences.”
On May 8, 2019, GHSA and State Farm
® assembled an interdisciplinary expert panel for a meeting in the Washington, D.C. area to develop ideas for how to deliver safety messages to the public and how to prepare the criminal justice community as AVs take the road. GHSA will release a white paper summarizing the expert panel outcomes later this summer and discuss the paper at its
2019 Annual Meeting, August 26-28 in Anaheim, California, which will also feature speakers from Uber, Waymo, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and other leading voices on AV safety.
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