This month, Germany’s transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, proposed the first set of rules for autonomous vehicles. They would define the driver’s role in such cars and govern how such cars perform in crashes where lives might be lost.
本月，德国交通部长亚历山大·多布林特提出了第一套自动驾驶汽车规则。他们将定义驾驶员在此类汽车中的角色，并规定此类汽车在可能导致死亡的碰撞中的表现。
The proposal attempts to deal with what some call the “death valley” of autonomous vehicles: the grey area between semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars that could delay the driverless future.
该提案试图解决一些人所说的自动驾驶汽车的“死亡谷”：半自动和全无人驾驶汽车之间的灰色地带，这可能会推迟无人驾驶的未来。
Dobrindt wants three things: that a car always chooses property damage over personal injury; that it never distinguishes between humans based on age or race; and that if a human removes his or her hands from the driving wheel — to check email, say — the car’s maker is responsible if there is a crash.
多布林特设想三件事：汽车总是选择财产损失而不是人身伤害；从不根据年龄或种族区分人类；如果一个人把手从方向盘上移开，比如说查收邮件，如果发生撞车事故，汽车制造商就要负责。
“The change to the road traffic law will permit fully automatic driving,” says Dobrindt. It will put fully driverless cars on an equal legal footing to human drivers, he says.
多布林特说：“道路交通法的修改将允许全自动驾驶。”。他说，这将使无人驾驶汽车与人类驾驶员享有平等的法律地位。
Who is responsible for the operation of such vehicles is not clear among car makers, consumers and lawyers. “The liability issue is the biggest one of them all,” says Natasha Merat at the University of Leeds, UK.
在汽车制造商、消费者和律师中，谁负责这些汽车的运营尚不清楚。“法律责任问题是所有问题中最大的一个，”英国利兹大学的娜塔莎·梅拉特说。
An assumption behind UK insurance for driverless cars, introduced earlier this year, insists that a human “ be watchful and monitoring the road” at every moment.
今年早些时候推出的英国无人驾驶汽车保险背后的一个假设，坚持认为人类在任何时刻都“保持警惕并监控道路”。
But that is not what many people have in mind when thinking of driverless cars. “When you say ‘driverless cars’, people expect driverless cars.” Merat says. “You know — no driver.”
但这并不是许多人在想到无人驾驶汽车时想到的。“当你说‘无人驾驶汽车’时，人们期望无人驾驶汽车。”梅拉特说，“你知道，没有司机。”
Because of the confusion, Merat thinks some car makers will wait until vehicles can be fully automated without operation.
由于规则混乱，梅拉特认为，一些汽车制造商将保持等候，直到车辆可以完全自动化，无需操作。
Driverless cars may end up being a form of public transport rather than vehicles you own, says Ryan Calo at Stanford University, California. That is happening in the UK and Singapore, where government-provided driverless vehicles are being launched.
加州斯坦福大学的瑞安·卡罗说，无人驾驶汽车最终可能成为一种公共交通工具，而不是个人汽车。这种情况正在英国和新加坡发生，政府提供的无人驾驶汽车正在那里推出。
That would go down poorly in the US, however. “The idea that the government would take over driverless cars and treat them as a public good would get absolutely nowhere here,” says Calo.
然而，在美国，这种情况将很糟糕。“政府接管无人驾驶汽车并将其视为公共产品的想法在这里绝对行不通，”卡罗说。
