美国国家公共电台 NPR Self-Driving Cars Raise Questions About Who Carries Insurance

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Last month, a car using self-driving features crashed with a human driver. That accident in Tempe, Ariz., did not result in any major injuries, but it did highlight new issues for the auto¹ insurance industry. NPR's Yuki Noguchi asked how the industry might change its business model.

YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE²: Warren Buffett's company owns insurance giant Geico. And in a February interview on CNBC, he said this.

(SOUNDBITE OF CNBC BROADCAST)

WARREN BUFFETT: If the day comes when a significant portion of the cars on the road are autonomous³, it will hurt Geico's business very significantly.

NOGUCHI: It seems to make sense. If humans aren't driving the cars, who needs a car insurance policy?

RICK GORVETT: Well, it's certainly a topic of heavy conversation right now.

NOGUCHI: At least it is a big topic for Rick Gorvett of the Casualty Actuarial Society, a trade group for people who analyze⁴ risk. He says right now, insurance rates are calculated mostly based on the attributes of drivers - their claims histories and driving records. A driverless car changes that model. Gorvett says the conventional wisdom, not yet backed up by a lot of actual data, is that autonomous cars will help reduce much of the human error that is the cause of the vast majority of accidents. In other words, fewer accidents. But accidents will still happen, and when they do, they will more likely be the fault of machine, not man.

GORVETT: At least current thinking is that the manufacturers will be ultimately responsible for a lot of these future accidents when an automated⁵ vehicle is involved.

NOGUCHI: How much that burden shifts is also a key question. James Lynch, the chief actuary for the Insurance Information Institute, is watching the transition to autonomous vehicles. He says if manufacturers have to bear all the insurance costs, that would create a huge long-term expense for carmakers. And that, in turn, could create disincentives for development.

JAMES LYNCH: If you believe that the autonomous technology is going to be saving lives then you would want them to have some sort of a protection.

NOGUCHI: That's not what's happening in Michigan, where a recent law specified⁶ automakers will assume the liability when driverless systems are at fault. In any event, the era of full automation is many years away. And in the interim⁷, drivers and autonomous cars will share the road. So Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, says for the most part fault and liability will be determined⁸ on a case-by-case basis, much in the same way it is now.

BRYANT WALKER SMITH: Who was speeding? Was there a stop sign? What was the weather? Did the vehicle fail? And in the future, the same questions will be asked.

NOGUCHI: The difference is just that the tech-savvy cars of the future will gather far more data to help determine fault in each instance.

SMITH: Details of that will be worked out by courts in individual cases. And those individual cases will provide the backdrop against which insurers start determining their exposure and then eventually the rates that they charge.

NOGUCHI: The problem, Smith says, is that insurance companies rely on historic information to formulate⁹ algorithms to help them predict future risk. But such data about driverless cars and accidents simply does not exist yet.

SMITH: When you have dramatically different technologies and new applications for automated driving, it makes predicting the future much harder because you don't have those reliable data about the past and present.

NOGUCHI: Today, an increasing number of conventional cars offer safety features like automatic braking and blind spot monitoring, capabilities¹⁰ that are partial steps toward automation. Insurance experts say if automakers collect and analyze more of that data, that should give them more valuable clues about how to think about risk in the future. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF CLOUDKICKER'S "INTRO TO WOUM")

1 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 autonomous   

adj.自治的；独立的

参考例句：

• They proudly declared themselves part of a new autonomous province.他们自豪地宣布成为新自治省的一部分。
• This is a matter that comes within the jurisdiction of the autonomous region.这件事是属于自治区权限以内的事务。

4 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

5 automated   

a.自动化的

参考例句：

• The entire manufacturing process has been automated. 整个生产过程已自动化。
• Automated Highway System (AHS) is recently regarded as one subsystem of Intelligent Transport System (ITS). 近年来自动公路系统(Automated Highway System,AHS)，作为智能运输系统的子系统之一越来越受到重视。

6 specified   

adj.特定的

参考例句：

• The architect specified oak for the wood trim. 那位建筑师指定用橡木做木饰条。
• It is generated by some specified means. 这是由某些未加说明的方法产生的。

7 interim   

adj.暂时的，临时的；n.间歇，过渡期间

参考例句：

• The government is taking interim measures to help those in immediate need.政府正在采取临时措施帮助那些有立即需要的人。
• It may turn out to be an interim technology.这可能只是个过渡技术。

8 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

9 formulate   

v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述

参考例句：

• He took care to formulate his reply very clearly.他字斟句酌，清楚地做了回答。
• I was impressed by the way he could formulate his ideas.他陈述观点的方式让我印象深刻。

10 capabilities   

n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities. 他有点自大，自视甚高。 来自辞典例句
• Some programmers use tabs to break complex product capabilities into smaller chunks. 一些程序员认为，标签可以将复杂的功能分为每个窗格一组简单的功能。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓