미국과 비교한 자율주행자동차의 개발 현황과 한국 개발규제체계의 개선 방향 -기술적 특성, 자동차안전기준, 규제기관, 도로시험주행을 중심으로

Recently, in seeking to improve safety by reducing car accidents, the development of automated vehicles has progressed rapidly in the U.S. led by tech companies like Waymo, subsidiary of Google, which pursue an aggressive all-in approach to immediately develop and test highly automated vehicles (hereafter “HAVs”) capable of driving without a human’s physical control or monitoring. On the contrary, Korea’s development of automated vehicles led by traditional automakers is stagnant. HAVs, operated by Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence (hereafter “Machine Learning AI”) based on visual information collected by various sensors, is one of the rapidly developing innovative technologies. Not only does it embody uncertainty, but also considerably influenced by the software characteristics of Machine Learning AI in which predictability enhances by learning as more Big Data is accumulated. Therefore, unlike how traditional automobiles are manufactured (i.e., based on test facilities separated from the public and specific automobile safety standards established by regulatory bodies), the most optimal means to accelerate the development of HAVs is by technological development and safety verification through test drives on public roads where diverse vehicles pass by and pedestrians walk across whilst ensuring developer autonomy. Moreover, the pillars of the regulatory framework on the development of HAVs include the need to establish vehicle safety standards related to vehicle structure and function as well as policy implementations and improvements pertaining to (i) the role of agencies capable of neutrally and professionally investigating car accidents, (ii) the flexible granting of permission and monitoring of test drives depending on the development phase of HAVs, and (iii) the introduction of a sharing-ride app that provides Big Data related to the development of HAVs and promotes customer acceptance. This paper explores: (a) the regulatory framework on the development of HAVs in the U.S. led by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is based on the self-certification of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS); (b) the regulatory role of state governments regarding the development of automated vehicles, namely, Michigan and California on opposite sides as to the permission of test driving HAVs on public roads; and (c) the issues of the slow-paced establishment of the regulatory framework on automated vehicles in Korea benchmarking the U.S.