Suppose Future Traffic Accidents Based on Development of Self-driving Vehicles

With the development of self-driving vehicles, the future road traffic system will be dramatically changed, and so will be the characteristics of road traffic accidents. It is necessary to keep abreast of the dynamic development of the vehicle models to grasp the trend of the accident forms. Based on Human-MachineEnvironment System Engineering theory, after study and analysis of the development trend of self-driving vehicles, considering the changes in all kinds of factors, such as human, vehicle, and road, this article supposes the new forms of road accidents that may occur in future. Due to the uneven development, there might be vehicles of different intelligence levels co-existing and influencing each other, which, together with the complexity of existing human, vehicle, and road factors, may cause even more complex traffic accident forms. New traffic phenomena in future, such as the coexistence of various self-driving vehicles and human-driving vehicles, switching between human-driving and self-driving, information security of intelligent transportation systems, and environmental interference and adverse weather factors, may cause accidents. Among them, the human factor is still important and should not be overlooked. The collision avoidance of self-driving vehicles should focus on the vulnerable road users. The study analyzes and forecasts the possible complexity of the future accidents, and suggests that in future the characteristics of accidents form change should be revealed in depth, so as to work out plans for preventing and handling the related accidents.