On 18 September, the European Commission published an independent expert report that looks at some of the outstanding safety and ethical issues around connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). We spoke to three experts involved in the report about what steps they think still need to be taken to make CAVs safe, what challenges still need to be overcome, and how we can prepare for a future in which both computer-driven and human-driven cars are on our roads. CAVs need to be able to understand the limitations of their human driver, and vice versa, says Marieke Martens, a professor in automated vehicles and human interaction from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. In other words, the human driver needs to be ready to take control of the car in certain situations, such as dealing with roadworks, while the car also needs to be able to monitor the capacity of the human in the car. "We (need) systems that can predict and understand what people can do," she said, adding that under certain conditions these systems could decide when it's better to take control or alert the driver.

After Uber's fatal self-driving crash last month in Tempe, Arizona, most observers had two basic question: Why did the car not see Elaine Herzberg crossing the street and stop before hitting her? And how can we stop this happening again, to someone else? The ride-hailing company has indefinitely suspended its testing program, and is cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation of the crash. The NTSB hasn't revealed any findings yet, but the lidar--the laser-shooting sensor that should have spotted Herzberg, even in the dark--is an obvious focus. Maybe it had a blind spot, or lacked the resolution to identify Herzberg as a pedestrian.

Last year, a Florida man became the first person to die in a crash involving autonomous driving technology. Forty-year-old Joshua Brown had his hands off the wheel when his car slammed into a semi-trailer making a left turn across his lane. The incident caused considerable consternation in the media, not the least for underlining the glaring absence of autonomous vehicle (AV) regulations then in place. "The fatal crash," the Los Angeles Times said, "highlighted what some say is a gaping pothole on the road to self-driving vehicles: the lack of federal rules." The newspaper had a point.

Self-driving might currently be in testing stage, but the technology is expected to become mainstream soon. A new study by the Boston Consulting Group, published Monday, says that 25 percent of the U.S. market will belong to self-driven cars by 2035. "After a comprehensive analysis of the findings of the study, BCG expects that partially autonomous vehicles will hit the road in large numbers by 2017, with the biggest growth coming in the next two decades. Mass adoption of self-driving technology will result in tremendous economic and societal benefits, and with it, far-reaching implications for automotive companies and other players in the value chain," the study states. The self-driving electric vehicles on the roads will belong not only to individual owners, but also to shared fleets of self-driving cars operated by services such as Uber, according to TechCrunch.

Uber has been forced to back down in its dispute with Californian authorities, taking its self-driving cars off the streets of San Francisco Wednesday. The move followed the state's Department of Motor Vehicles revoking their registration as well as reports of the cars running red lights. A standoff occurred after Uber had declined to follow the example of competitors such as Google and Tesla, which obtained state-issued permits for their self-driving cars. Because it employed a driver to sit in each of its fleet of 16 self-driving cars ready to take the wheel, Uber insisted that a permit wasn't necessary. But a week after the ride-hailing giant formally launched its cars on the San Francisco streets, the DMV cracked down.