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ARTICLE · 02 JUNE 2020

This Is NOT A Test: Inaugural AV Safety Standard Published

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
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On April 1, 2020, Underwriters Laboratories (UL) published the first dedicated safety standard for fully autonomous vehicles: UL 4600, "Standard for Evaluation of Autonomous Products". UL 4600 is a starting point...

CanadaTransport
Laura Day
Laura Day
Samantha Bonanno
Samantha Bonanno
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On April 1, 2020, Underwriters Laboratories (UL) published the first dedicated safety standard for fully autonomous vehicles: UL 4600, "Standard for Evaluation of Autonomous Products".

UL 4600 is a starting point for addressing the concern of many autonomous vehicle stakeholders: is their product "safe enough" given the complete absence of human supervision? To ensure that the appropriate parties were at the table, UL created a diverse body of international stakeholders to develop the standard, including government agencies, academia, autonomous vehicle developers, technology suppliers, insurance companies and many others.

As it stands, UL 4600 serves as a guide for autonomous vehicle designers to make a "safety case" for their products. At a high level, this includes three elements: goals, argumentation and evidence. It asks developers what it means to be safe in a specific context (e.g. do not hit other vehicles), how that goal will be achieved and what is the

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