Time to Formally Define Level 2+ Vehicle Automation
If it can make turns at intersections, it should be regulated in the same bin as Level 3
We should formally define SAE Level 2+ to be a feature that includes not only Level 2 abilities but also the ability to change its travel path via intersections and/or interchanges. Level 2+ should be regulated in the same bin as SAE Level 3 systems.
There is a lot to unpack here, but ultimately doing this matters for road safety, with much higher stakes over the next 10 years than regulating completely driverless (Level 4/5) robotaxi and robotruck safety. Because Level 2+ is already on the roads, doing real harm to real people today.
First, to address the definition folks who are losing it over me uttering the term "2+" right now, I am very well aware that SAE J3016 outlaws notation like "Level 2+". My suggestion is to change things to make it a defined term, since it is happening with or without SAE's blessing, and we urgently need consistently defined term for the things that everyone else calls Level 2+ or Level 2++. (Description and analysis of SAE Levels here. Myth 5 talks about Level 2+ in particular.)
From a safety point of view, we've known for decades that when you take away steering responsibility the human driver will drop out, suffering from automation complacency. There have been enough fatalities from plain features said to be Level 2 (automated lane keeping + automated speed), such as cars under-running crossing big rigs, that we know this is an issue. But we also have ways of trying to address this by requiring a combination of operational design domain enforcement and camera-based driver monitoring. This will take a while to play out, but the process has started. Maybe regulatory intervention will eventually resolve the worst of those issues. Maybe not -- but let's leave that for another day.
What's left is the middle ground between next-gen-cruise-control features (lane centering + automated speed) and vehicles that aspire to be robotaxis or robotrucks but aren't quite there. That middle ground includes a human driver so the designers can keep the driver in the loop to avoid and/or blame for crashes. If you thought plain Level 2 had problems with automation complacency, Level 2+ says “hold my beer.” (Have a look at the concept of the moral crumple zone. And do not involve beer in driving in any way whatsoever.)
Expecting a normal human being to pay continuous hawk-like attention for hours while a car drives itself almost perfectly is beyond credibility. And dangerous, because things might seem fine for lots and lots of miles — until the crash comes out of the blue and the driver is blamed for not preventing it. Telling people to pay attention isn’t going to cut it. And I really have my doubts that driver monitoring will work well enough to ensure quick reaction time after hours of monotony.
People just suck at paying attention to boring tasks and reacting quickly to sudden life-threatening failures. And blaming them for sucking won’t stop the next crash. I think the car is going to have to be able to actively manage the human rather than the human managing the car, and the car will have to ensure safety until the human driver has time to re-engage with the driving task (10 seconds, 30 seconds, maybe longer sometimes). That sounds more like a Level 3 feature than a Level 2 feature from a regulatory point of view.
Tesla FSD is the poster child for Level 2+, but over the next 5 years we will see a lot more companies testing these waters as they give up on their robotaxi dreams and settle for something that almost drives itself -- but not quite.
The definition I propose is Level 2+ is a feature that meets the requirements for Level 2 but also is capable of changing roadways at an intersection and/or interchange.
Put simply, if it drives you down a single road, it's Level 2. But if it can make turns or use an exit/entrance ramp it is Level 2+.
One might pick different criteria, but this has the advantage of being simple and relatively unambiguous. Lane changing on the same roadway is still Level 2. But you are at Level 2+ once you start doing intersections, or go down the road (ha!) of recognizing traffic lights, looking at traffic for unprotected left turns, and so on. In other words, almost a robotaxi -- but with a human trying to guess when the computer driver will make a mistake and then potentially getting blamed for a crash.
No doubt there will be minor edge cases to be clarified, probably having to do with the exact definition of “roadway”. Or someone can propose a good definition for that word that takes care of the edge cases. The point here is not to write detailed legal wording, but rather to get the idea across of making turns at an intersection being the litmus test for Level 2+.
From a regulatory point of view, Level 2+ vehicles should be regulated the same as Level 3 vehicles. I realize Level 2+ is not necessarily a strict subset of Level 3, but the levels were never intended to be a deployment path, despite the use of a numbering system. I think they both share a concern of adequate driver engagement when needed in a system that is essentially guaranteed to create driver complacency and slow reaction times due to loss of situational awareness.
How does this look in practice? In the various bills floating around federal and state legislatures right now, they should include a definition of Level 2+ (Level 2 + intersection/interchange capability) and group it with Level 3 for whatever regulatory strategy they propose. Simple as that.
If SAE ORAD wants to take up this proposal for SAE J3016 that's fine too. (Bet some committee members are reading this — happy to discuss at the next meeting if you’re willing to entertain it.) But that document disclaims safety as being out of its scope, so what I care about a lot more are the regulatory frameworks that are currently near-toothless for the not-quite-robotaxi Level 2+ features already being driven on public roads.
Note: Based on proposed US legislation I've seen, pulling Level 2+ into the Level 3 bin is the most urgent and viable path to improve regulatory oversight of this technology in the near to mid term. If you really want to do away with the levels I have a detailed way to do this, noting that the cut-line for Supervisory is at Level 2 rather than Level 2+, but is otherwise compatible with this essay. If you want to use the modes but change the cut line, let’s talk about how to do that without breaking anything.
Note: Tesla fans can react unfavorably to my essays and social media posts. To head off some of the “debate” — yes, navigate-on-autopilot counts as Level 2+ in my view. And we have the crashes to prove it. And no, Teslas are not dramatically safer than other cars by any credible analysis I’ve ever seen.
Edit: Note: This essay refers to US regulations and US law. EU law does not use the levels. It has its own challenges, but being burdened by using the SAE levels is not one of them.
I believe we ought to distinguish between 'driver assistance systemes' and what might be termed 'automated supervised driving'. A driver assistance system is anything which helps an active, in control driver with their task, but still provides a 'safety net' if things seems to start to go wrong, such as coming up against a leading vehicle too quickly, moving into the shoulder of the road at high speed, etc. We could usefully add notifications/warnings when closing in on a traffic light (perhaps with an 'annunciator' panel at the top of the instrument panel showing active colour), warnings when meeting upcoming traffic when the left turn indicator is turned on and the car is slowing for the turn, warnings for pedestrian crossings (from map and GPS, which might not be faultless but as the driver is supposed to be active, no great issue either). Systems such as these are the only ones we rightly ought to call "Level 2".
What I provisionally call 'Automated supervised driving' includes not only what you, Phil, wants to add to "Level 3", but also the kind of automated steering which lets the driver rely on the car to steer, whether with or without hands on the wheel (and after all, in most modern cars on good roads you can release the wheel for a second or two even w/o any automation). As I understand it, the drift towards complacency startas as you no longer needs to perform the activity of continuous small adjustments, not when you take your hands off the wheel - you have probably been 'drifting' long before that if your car steers competently.
And I don't give a lot for so-called 'driver awareness cameras' which starts to complain as soon as you look into the rear view mirror, on the stupid centralized display panel, or just move your gaze around to keep up awareness of the overall traffic situation - which, according to road tests, is what may cars are doing these days.
I also think automated lane change, and automatic speed adjust from roadside speed signs should be firmly placed in the Level 3 category
And what about adaptive cruise control (without sign reading)? I think this is a borderline feature, especially if it is unreliable (influenced by leading car size and color, for instance). But I guess that since it is now so common it will be difficult to reclassify.
Anyway, overall the above reflects my profound negativity to the SAE levels, which in my opinion are nothing but a narrow minded engineers 'feature matrix', with little or no reflection around human cognition, usability or ergonomic research, nor about the real issues encountered in traffic.
I also would like to contrast this approach with the Garmin Autoland feature for civil aviation, which, when necessary (pilot incapacition) can take over the flight, declare an emergency, find a suitable airport, and land on the tarmac and turn off the aircraft - but which strongly illegal if used outside an emergency. I find that kind of 'safety net' a commendable way of thinking about safety, compared to what the car industry seems fixated at doing: providing features to impress your gullible friends while charging a lot of money under the guise of 'safety'.
The regulatory process carefully avoids the SAE levels.
The systems you are discussing are called DCAS (driver control assistance systems). The WP.29 regulation for this is Reg171, currently for hands on. The update is in progress for hands off. See https://wiki.unece.org/display/trans/ADAS. NHTSA has stayed out of this.
Reg 157 covers the current level 3 products like Mercedes. Work on the next generation is in the ADS (automated driving systems) informal working group. See https://wiki.unece.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=238223362. A NHTSA person is co-chair of this activity