Shenzhen becomes the first city where drones can drive on public roads

Although the so-called “Silicon Valley” in California is considered to be the birthplace of high technologies all over the world, in fact, Chinese engineers in their local market sometimes outperform American competitors in a number of areas. For example, yesterday, July 6, the ArenaEV news outlet, citing its sources, reported that the Celestial Empire officially adopted a law that allows the use of vehicles with a third level of autonomous driving in Shenzhen, the fourth largest city in China, which is home to 18 million people. . And this is the first such law in the country – it should untie the hands of many drone manufacturers.

It is worth noting that China has its own system of levels of vehicle autonomy – in the new legislation they are divided into three groups with a different set of capabilities. At the first level there are cars that are considered autonomous only conditionally, and at the second level there are vehicles with a high level of driving automation. It is worth noting that the main requirement for these types of vehicles is the presence of a manual control option – the driver, if necessary, should be able to pick up the steering wheel and take control from the automation. But on the third level, there are vehicles that are considered completely unmanned – they do not provide manual control and even a seat for the driver.

It is these cars that the Chinese authorities have given the opportunity, without any (practically) restrictions, to join the flow of traffic on public roads. True, so far no one has dared to deploy the program all over the country at once, so they limited themselves to one city. And, in fact, Shenzhen became the first metropolis in the world where fully autonomous cars were allowed to drive on public roads at the legislative level. However, the issue of safety with such vehicles remains a cornerstone, and this is also taken care of in the law.

Absolutely all cars that provide the function of autonomous driving at any level must be equipped with an external indicator – this is necessary so that other drivers in the stream understand that the road user is driving unmanned. Moreover, the law states that even if the vehicle has an accident while in unmanned mode, the driver is responsible, and if the car is completely unmanned, the owner takes the blame.

Source: Trash Box

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