Level 3 presents a complicated, ‘mushy middle’ in automated driving

An automated driving breakthrough set to reach public roads this year likely will motor into a thicket of legal complications and other hurdles.

Mercedes-Benz plans to sell vehicles equipped with Drive Pilot, a Level 3 automated system and the first of its kind in the marketplace. Such a system can maintain control and responsibility of a car in certain scenarios. However, the human driver must take control upon the system’s request.

When active, Drive Pilot allows motorists to shift their attention from traffic, according to Mercedes.

Volvo and Audi tried to offer similar systems years ago, abandoning them after finding they could not untangle the legal, regulatory and safety quandaries that still accompany Level 3 driving.

Level 3 systems are “an engineer’s dream and a plaintiff attorney’s next yacht,” said Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work leading the Advanced Vehicle Technology Consortium examines how drivers use automated systems.

Conceptually, Level 3 automation might allow motorists to read a book, watch Netflix or text their friends. But Mercedes-Benz declined to specify whether those activities would be permitted with Drive Pilot engaged.

Such ambiguity surrounding what a motorist can or cannot do is one offshoot of a more complex problem: understanding of who — or what — is responsible for a vehicle’s operations.

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— Pete Bigelow