SHERIDAN, WYOMING – April 20, 2025 - Reframing Safety in a Driverless Future
Carnegie Mellon University’s Philip Koopman to share insights on redefining safety without a human driver
As autonomous vehicle (AV) technology continues its rapid advancement, a key industry voice is urging a reassessment of how we define safety in the absence of human drivers. Philip Koopman, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a globally respected authority on AV safety, will present his perspective at the ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo Europe 2025 in Stuttgart, Germany, this May.
The importance of a multi-constraint satisfaction framework
Why traditional safety metrics fall short in autonomous environments
Koopman’s talk, “Understanding self-driving vehicle safety,” highlights the inadequacies of the traditional safety model based solely on positive risk balance (PRB)—a metric that measures whether AVs reduce total harm compared to human drivers. “Removing the human driver fundamentally changes what we actually mean by acceptable safety,” Koopman explains.
He advocates for a broader approach: “A simplistic ‘safer than human driver’ positive risk balance approach must be augmented with additional considerations regarding risk transfer, negligent driving behavior, standards conformance, absence of unreasonable fine-grain risk, ethics and equity concerns.”
Beyond net harm: Social acceptability as a benchmark
How risk perception challenges AV deployment at scale
In his presentation, Koopman will explore why even statistically safer AVs can face public backlash. “Positive risk balance is the starting point for safety, not the ending point,” he says. He raises hypothetical and real-world examples to illustrate public discomfort with incidents that seem avoidable—even if overall crash rates decline. “There are aspects to safety beyond net harm (risk balance) that will matter on a practical basis for socially acceptable safety.”
Real-world failures reveal deeper safety gaps
When ‘no human driver’ becomes a liability
Citing incidents in California, Koopman points to troubling cases of AVs interfering with emergency responders, ignoring construction signage, and even dragging safety tape down the street. “While it is true that human drivers also make mistakes,” Koopman says, “every picture of such an incident degrades public trust in the technology.”
These episodes highlight a mismatch between public expectations and AV behavior—especially when the industry promises to avoid “stupid driving mistakes.”
A new model for safety in autonomous systems
Meeting multiple constraints before optimizing safety or profitability
Koopman proposes shifting from optimizing a single metric to meeting a range of safety-related constraints. “We should first consider this a multi-constraint satisfaction problem, and achieve acceptability in all areas,” he asserts. This includes net risk, risk transfer, negligent behavior, dangerous driving patterns, and ethical/legal conformity.
He emphasizes that rare but high-impact events may be invisible during early AV testing, but “as we have seen due to increasing scale of operations in the San Francisco area, the fact that there is more to safety than PRB has become impossible to ignore.”
Why now: The urgency of proactive safety thinking
Staying ahead of reputational and regulatory pitfalls
“We are on the cusp of larger-scale deployment of autonomous vehicle technology,” Koopman notes. His goal is to help the industry think beyond technical safety standards to ensure public and social acceptance. “I think it is important to help people think about the wider implications of socially acceptable safety so the industry can stay ahead of problems instead of having to react to a stream of adverse news articles.”
Don’t miss Koopman’s session at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo Europe
Philip Koopman will speak on May 20 during the conference session, “Challenges, innovations and outlook surrounding the development and safe deployment of ADAS and AV technologies.”
Visit the official website to learn more and book your conference pass.