Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Dong Liu Chen Zeyun Qi Yaoqi
Autonomous driving is on the way. At the same time, there is no legal basis for self-driving cars on the road, who should be held responsible for traffic accidents... These problems to be solved lie ahead of autonomous driving.
Zeng Qinghong, deputy to the National People's Congress, chairman of the board of directors and secretary of the party committee of Guangzhou Automobile Group, said that the mainland has developed rapidly, but there are still large gaps in the laws and regulations related to intelligent driving at this stage, and the lack of legal basis for intelligent driving cars on the road; the main body responsible for intelligent driving car traffic accidents is different from traditional cars, and it is impossible to simply apply the principle of fault liability and the principle of no fault, and the causal relationship is difficult to determine.
This year, a number of NPC deputies, including Zeng Qinghong, and members of the CPPCC National Committee suggested regulating the development of autonomous driving technology from the legislative and policy levels.
On January 26, 2021, in the Guangzhou Convention and Exhibition Park, self-driving cars were demonstrating Photo / Yangcheng Evening News All-media reporter Song Jinyu
Status: Domestic automatic driving is currently roughly in the L3 and L4 development stages
2021 is a year of rapid development of domestic autonomous driving technology: the draft amendment to the Road Traffic Safety Law to increase the content of automatic driving was released, Beijing opened the country's first pilot for the commercialization of autonomous driving services, Shenzhen tried local legislation to explore in the fields of intelligent networked vehicle access management and accident liability determination, and Guangzhou launched a pilot project of mixed travel of intelligent networked vehicles and human driving vehicles... Autonomous vehicles such as self-driving taxis, buses, and unmanned delivery vehicles have entered the lives of ordinary people.
Kong Xiangwen, assistant professor of the Law School of the University of International Business and Economics, introduced that according to international standards, automatic driving can be divided into five levels: L1-L5. Among them, L1 is assisted driving, L2-L3 is partial, conditional automatic driving, and L4-L5 belongs to advanced automatic driving that can basically separate from people.
"At present, domestic automatic driving technology is roughly in the L3 and L4 stages, that is, the stage of conditional automatic driving and highly automated driving, but there is no large-scale commercialization." Zheng Zhifeng, associate professor of Southwest University of Political Science and Law and director of the Autonomous Driving Law Research Center of the Artificial Intelligence Law Research Institute, told the Yangcheng Evening News reporter in an interview.
Teng Hongqing, professor at the Law School of South China University of Technology and director of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Intelligent Rule of Law Research Center, told reporters that from the perspective of foreign practice, since last year, Germany and the United Kingdom have invested commercialized fully autonomous vehicles in specific areas and road sections, and although the current domestic automatic driving system in the mainland has been able to go out of the laboratory and participate through vehicle auxiliary personnel, and conduct autonomous driving road evaluation in more than 20 cities, it has not yet reached full automatic driving.
"Mainland autonomous driving has entered a critical period of landing, technology has run and even led the world, but the development of high-grade autonomous vehicles in mainland China still faces many problems, and it is necessary to further break through the policy bottlenecks that are incompatible with technology and industrial development, and stimulate innovation capabilities in the field of automatic driving." Robin Li, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman and chief executive of Baidu, said in a proposal submitted this year.
Icebreaker: Legislation on autonomous driving is expected at the national level
"A very important problem with self-driving cars is the issue of responsibility, which is a pain point that plagues the development of the industry." Zheng Zhifeng said.
On August 14, 2021, Lin Wenqin, the founder of "Mei yihao" company, drove the WEIO ES8 car to enable the automatic driving function (NOP pilot status) in a traffic accident in the Hanjiang section of the Shenhai Expressway and unfortunately passed away. A few days later, the Putian Expressway Detachment of the Traffic Police Corps of the Fujian Provincial Public Security Department reported that the traffic accident was caused by Lin Moumou driving a rear-end of an electric vehicle, and the public security traffic police department would make a responsibility determination according to law on the basis of the accident investigation. Weilai's staff responded that Weilai Automobile's NOP (Navigate on Pilot) is not an automatic driving, but a pilot assistance function.
Zheng Zhifeng said that the biggest difference between autonomous driving and traditional motor vehicles is whether the operation of the car is dominated by humans or machines. The existing road traffic safety law and civil code in the motor vehicle traffic accident liability is based on the driving behavior and driving fault of human drivers, and after automatic driving replaces manual driving, the existing liability rules are difficult to continue to apply.
According to Zheng Zhifeng, the domestic laws and policies on autonomous vehicles are mainly divided into several sections: first, road testing and demonstration applications, such as the "Intelligent Connected Vehicle Road Test and Demonstration Application Management Specifications (Trial)" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Transport; the second is automotive data security, such as "Several Provisions on Automotive Data Security Management (Implementation)"; the third is the regulations on the production access of autonomous vehicles, and the "Guidelines for the Management of Intelligent And Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Product Access (Trial)" (Draft for Comments), "Opinions on Strengthening the Management of Access to Intelligent and Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Products"; the fourth is the revision of road traffic regulations, such as the Road Traffic Safety Law (Revised Draft). At the local level, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chongqing and other places have introduced regulations with certain innovative significance.
In April 2021, the Road Traffic Safety Law (Revised Draft) drafted by the Ministry of Public Security clearly stipulates the relevant requirements for road testing and passage of cars with autonomous driving functions, as well as the provisions on the sharing of liability for violations and accidents. "Although no formal regulations have been issued so far, this is also the first time at the national legislative level that it is expected to fill the legal gap in the mainland's autonomous driving industry." Teng Hongqing said.
In addition, on March 23, 2021, Shenzhen promulgated the Regulations on the Administration of Intelligent And Connected Vehicles in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (Draft for Comment), covering the entire chain of intelligent and connected vehicles such as road testing and demonstration applications, access and registration, use management, network security and data protection, vehicle-road collaborative infrastructure, road transportation, traffic accidents and violation handling, and legal liability.
Teng Hongqing told reporters: "Overall, the national level is expected to carry out ice-breaking legislation on the principle of support for automatic driving, while developed regions may take the lead in exploring relevant legislation according to the needs of industrial development and the driving force of scientific and technological innovation." ”
Recommendation: Regulate autonomous driving technology from the legislative and policy levels
How to reasonably define the liability for traffic accidents caused by automatic driving, and how to ensure that automatic driving develops in the right direction of the industry?
Zeng Qinghong proposed this year to amend Articles 2 and 76 of the Road Traffic Safety Law. In the bill, he suggested adding and clarifying the definition of "robot driver", believing that this will help clarify the responsible subjects of traffic accidents, and also pave the way for forward-looking legislation for the legality of intelligent driving cars on the road in the mainland in the future; it is proposed to add mandatory provisions that "intelligent driving cars should be equipped with key data storage black boxes or key data cloud backups" to determine whether the responsible entity controlling the vehicle at the time of the traffic accident is the driver or the intelligent driving system; it is recommended that on the basis of the current traffic accident attribution, It is proposed to add the relevant legal provisions on "including the liability insurance of intelligent driving vehicle products in the scope of compulsory insurance and dispersing the risks of relevant responsible entities" to ensure that technological development is combined with social public interests.
Chen Hong, deputy to the National People's Congress, secretary of the party committee and chairman of SAIC Motor, aims at the "development of intelligent and connected vehicles" this year. In Chen Hong's view, to promote the faster development of intelligent and connected vehicles, especially to achieve the landing of autonomous driving technology, it is necessary to achieve breakthroughs in laws and regulations. He suggested that in the road traffic safety law, the legal status of automatic driving systems should be clarified, and standard rules and disposal mechanisms for the division of responsibilities between human drivers and "autonomous driving systems" (car companies, parts suppliers, etc.) should be formulated. He also suggested that a grade evaluation and certification system and access mechanism for "automatic driving system" be established in the "Measures for the Administration of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Product Access".
Li Yanhong, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, submitted a proposal this year on "Accelerating the Policy Innovation of Unmanned Autonomous Driving, Breaking Through the Policy Bottlenecks That Are Incompatible with Development, and Supporting the Global Leading Position of Technology". Robin Li put forward three suggestions in the proposal: first, guide and support local governments to introduce policies, clearly support unmanned vehicles without safety personnel on the road, and create a pilot zone for the manned operation policy of all unmanned autonomous vehicles; second, accelerate the revision and implementation of the road traffic safety law, and lay a legal foundation for accelerating the large-scale commercial and unmanned use of autonomous vehicles from the national level; third, moderately advance the construction of intelligent transportation infrastructure and give play to the remote control advantages of 5G. Through vehicle-road collaboration, we will promote the significant improvement of traffic efficiency and safety, drive the transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry to intelligence and networking, and let the truly unmanned intelligent networked vehicles drive on China's roads as soon as possible.
In Teng Hongqing's view, whether it is national macro legislation or local exploration legislation, it is necessary to solve core legal issues such as the safety of automatic driving systems, the division of traffic accident liability, road accident insurance, the entry and exit of market entities, data supervision and intellectual property protection, but it is clear that neither the international nor domestic theoretical circles and the practical industry have reached a consensus. "Therefore, it is recommended that gradual legislation can start with fully autonomous buses, then fully autonomous taxis and commercial vehicles, and finally fully autonomous private cars, and through classification and layering legislation, it is more refined and easier to reach consistent legislation." Teng Hongqing said.
(For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Wu Anqi
![How to buy the first car insurance for a new driver |?[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)