(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Many of us are enthusiastic about the prospect of self-driving cars or automated vehicles. They promise to free us from the stress of driving. Automated cars may also reduce accidents caused by distraction or poor judgment.

Cars now come with more automated features than ever: headlight activation, emergency braking, detection and avoidance, and more. Many vehicles now include artificial intelligence to help vehicles drive safely.

So why aren’t fleets of self-driving cars already for sale and out on the road? There’s a lot we don’t really know about how to:
• Automate driving
• Measure driving performance
• Make sure automated vehicles drive safely

The human aspect of driving is challenging to automate

Experienced drivers make many decisions instinctively, such as stopping quickly when they spot a deer in the road. We still don’t know how to describe that instinct to a machine, even with its artificial intelligence and sensors. Modeling instinct, or teaching a car to drive like a human, is an even bigger engineering and scientific challenge.

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