Safe Drive Initiative: Creating safe autonomous vehicle policy

Autonomous vehicles (AV) have revealed a governance gap, as policy-makers struggle to understand and keep pace with the emerging technology field. This paper identifies the tensions around understanding the safety of AVs .

Optimal AV safety assessment will benefit from a multistakeholder approach convening regulators, AV developers, safety experts and members of the public to ensure that a system is safe to use on public roads. The exact processes will vary across jurisdictions due to geographic, political and legislative differences, but harmonizing approaches will accelerate the development and deployment of AV technology around the world. This review is the first in a series of documents published by the World Economic Forum to offer holistic guidance on AV policy. By engaging with industry partners, regulators, academia and civil society, the Safe Drive Initiative proposes a broad and actionable framework to enable policy-makers to create a graduated series of milestones.