ARI Announces Retirement of UK Managing Director Keith Allen
ARI announced Keith Allen will be retiring from his position as UK Managing Director at the end of 2019 but will continue in an advisory role until the end of 2021.
“We would like to congratulate Keith on a successful career and his leadership in bringing innovative fleet leasing options to our UK business,” said Bob White, president of ARI. “We have all benefitted from his contributions to our organisational achievements and our company culture.”
“This has been a fantastic seven years, and I have enjoyed watching our people grow with the business. ARI truly values its employees as is evident from their culture and values and I look forward to seeing and contributing to the continued success of ARI both on a personal and professional level, said Allen.
Ford, GM, and Toyota Team Up to Set Safety Standards for Self-Driving Cars
Ford, General Motors, and Toyota, along with SAE International, are forming the Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium, focusing on industry-wide safety standards for autonomous cars and gaining the public's trust.
The consortium's first project will be a "roadmap of priorities" that will include testing guidelines, as well as protocols for data sharing and how autonomous vehicles interact with other road users.
Read the article at The Drive.
Fleet Safety: It Is You Versus Silicon Valley
By Paul Atchley, PhD, eDriving’s Brain Scientist Advisor
Imagine one day that you, the fleet safety manager, receive a report about your drivers that reveals that about 1 in 10 of your drivers is addicted to a substance that, when used, significantly impairs their ability to drive safely.
And further imagine the report also tells you that almost all of the remaining drivers are probably not “addicted” in the clinical sense, but they are highly compelled to take the same substance while driving and admit they keep the substance in their vehicles and also admit to occasional use.
This is that report. For a little more than a decade since the release of the iPhone, Silicon Valley has been finding ways to increase the degree to which the “phones” and apps are able to grab and hold the attention of their owners. Some very bright people do careful work to enhance the psychological compulsion to use our smart devices constantly.
Self-Driving Car Isn’t Being Taught How to Drive, But How Not to Drive
An upstart British company called Wayve, claims to have created self-driving car technology replicating the sophisticated problem-solving and spontaneity of human drivers.
The company released a video of a vehicle navigating through the narrow streets of Cambridge, England with only 20 hours of training data.
“Every time a safety driver intervenes or takes over control of the vehicle, we learn from that experience and that feedback,” Alex Kendall, the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer, says in the video. “And with each piece of data we’re able to train our system to get better and better and better.”
Read the article at The Washington Post,
EU Road Fatality Figures Show Need for Swift Action on Safety
By Natalie Middleton
Although fewer people died on European roads last year, further concrete and swift actions on road figures are needed, as shown by new road fatality figures from the European Commission.
The preliminary data shows there were around 25,100 fatalities in road accidents in the EU28 in 2018; down 21% compared to 2010, and 1% compared to 2017.
Although the figures confirm that European roads are by far the safest in the world, they also show that the EU is off track to reach its target of halving the number of road deaths by 2020.
Read the article at International Fleet World
