27 March 2017

Uber suspended its pilot program for driverless cars on Saturday after a vehicle equipped with the nascent technology crashed on an Arizona roadway, Reuters reported on Sunday.

The accident, the latest involving a self-driving vehicle operated by one of several companies experimenting with autonomous vehicles, caused no serious injuries, Uber said. Even so, the company said it was grounding driverless cars involved in the pilot program, which was launched last year.

The accident is not the first time a self-driving car has been involved in a collision. A driver of a Tesla Motors Inc Model S car operating in autopilot mode was killed in a collision with a truck in Williston, Florida in 2016. A self-driving vehicle operated by Alphabet Inc's Google was involved in a crash last year in Mountain View, California, striking a bus while attempting to navigate around an obstacle.

The issue of legislation and regulation related to driverless vehicles was discussed at a press conference in Dubai earlier this month to mark the launch the upcoming Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit, which will take place at the Paris-Sorbonne Abu Dhabi campus from March 27-30.

“There has been much excitement about the introduction of autonomous and smart vehicles,” Claude-Étienne Armingaud, a Paris-based partner at law firm K&L Gates, said in a press statement. “But there is still a tremendous amount to be done before they can become viable replacements for current transportation systems.

“A start has been made towards laying the foundation of a regulatory framework in many countries around the world. But there remain considerable challenges that must be overcome by lawmakers and regulators in developing a comprehensive and unified approach to govern what we anticipate will be a strong sector in the very near future.”

Click here for a detailed guide to the regulations related to driverless cars

Despite the setbacks, Dubai has been quick to embrace the trend towards driverless vehicles. The results of a survey released in December found that most residents in the United Arab Emirates are enthusiastic about driverless cars, with 57 percent of respondents aware of driverless car trials taking place in Downtown Dubai.

The study revealed that 58 percent of respondents are enthusiastic towards driverless cars, with 61 percent believing driverless cars will allow everyone to get around easily regardless of their driving ability. A further 43 percent of research participants believed that driverless cars will help reduce traffic congestion on roads.

The world’s first pilotless aerial vehicle aircraft capable of carrying passengers is set to fly across Dubai as early as July, the city’s transport body announced in February.

The emirate’s authorities have set a goal that one in four journeys in Dubai will be driverless by 2030 and this will include fully autonomous buses, the metro, boats, trams, taxis and even autonomous aircraft.

“The Government of Dubai is leading the transition to driverless mobility in Dubai,” Mattar Al Tayer, the Roads and Transport Authority’s director-general and chairman, said in a speech at the World Government Summit in Dubai last month.

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