新高级阅读前（双语）87（998）

PASSAGE EIGHTY-SEVEN

Automatic driving

1.This month, Germany’s transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, proposed the first set of rules for autonomous vehicles.  

2.They would define the driver’s role in such cars and govern how such cars perform in crashes where lives might be lost.

3.The proposal attempts to deal with what some call the “death valley” of autonomous vehicles: the grey area between semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars that could delay the driverless future.

4.Dobrindt wants three things: that a car always chooses property damage over personal injury; that it never distinguishes between humans based on age or race; and that if a human removes his or her hands from the driving wheel—to check email, say—the car’s maker is responsible if there is a crash.

5.“The change to the road traffic law will permit fully automatic driving,” says Dobrindt.  

6.It will put fully driverless cars on an equal legal footing to human drivers, he says.

7.Who is responsible for the operation of such vehicles is not clear among car makers, consumers and lawyers.  

8.“The liability issue is the biggest one of them all,” says Natasha Merat at the University of Leeds, U.K.

9.An assumption behind U.K. insurance for driverless cars, introduced earlier this year, insists that a human “be watchful and monitoring the road” at every moment.

10.But that is not what many people have in mind when thinking of driverless cars.  

11.“When you say ’driverless cars’, people expect driverless cars.”  Merat says.“You know—no driver.”

12.Because of the confusion, Merat thinks some car makers will wait until vehicles can be fully automated without human operation.

13.Driverless cars may end up being a form of public transport rather than vehicles you own, says Ryan Calo at Stanford University, California.  

14.That is happening in the UK and Singapore, where government-provided driverless vehicles are being launched. That would go down poorly in the U.S., however.  

15.“The idea that the government would take over driverless cars and treat them as a public good would get absolutely nowhere here,” says Calo.

第八十七篇

自动驾驶

1.本月，德国交通部长亚历山大·多布林特提出了第一套针对自动驾驶汽车的规定。

2.它们将定义驾驶员在此类汽车中的角色，并管理此类汽车在可能造成人员伤亡的撞车事故中的表现。

3.该提案试图解决无人驾驶汽车被一些人称为“死亡谷”的问题:半无人驾驶汽车和完全无人驾驶汽车之间的灰色地带，这可能会推迟无人驾驶汽车的未来。

4.多布林特想要三件事:汽车总是选择财产损失而不是人身伤害;它从不根据年龄或种族来区分人类;而且，如果一个人把手从方向盘上拿开，比如去查收邮件，汽车制造商就必须对撞车事故负责。

5.“道路交通法的修改将允许全自动驾驶，”多比恩特说。

6.他说，这将使完全无人驾驶汽车在法律上与人类司机处于平等地位。

7.在汽车制造商、消费者和律师之间，谁对此类车辆的运行负责尚不清楚。

8.“责任问题是其中最大的一个，”英国利兹大学的娜塔莎·梅拉特说

9.今年早些时候推出的英国无人驾驶汽车保险背后的一个假设，坚持认为人类在任何时候都“保持警惕并监控道路”。

10.但这并不是很多人想到无人驾驶汽车时想到的。

11.“当你说‘无人驾驶汽车’时，人们期待的是无人驾驶汽车。”梅拉特说。“你知道，没有司机。”

12.由于这种困惑，梅拉特认为一些汽车制造商将等到车辆完全自动化而无需人工操作。

13.加州斯坦福大学的莱恩·卡洛说，无人驾驶汽车可能最终成为一种公共交通工具，而不是你自己的汽车。

14.这种情况正在英国和新加坡发生，政府提供的无人驾驶汽车正在这两个国家推出。不过，这在美国可能会受到不利影响。

15.“政府接管无人驾驶汽车并将其视为公共产品的想法在这里绝对行不通，”卡洛说。