In Light of Recent Tragic Events, Germany Wants to Put Black Boxes in Self-Driving Cars

Germany is proposing new legislation that would require manufacturers of self-driving automobiles to equip their vehicles with black boxes.

The German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure hopes that the new regulations could help investigators determine the cause of accidents involving self-driving cars, according to the BBC.

Recent crashes involving Tesla cars operating in Autopilot mode have put pressure on manufacturers and regulatory agencies to ensure that self-driving technology is safe for regular use, Reuters reported.

The black boxes would function in a similar way to the kind installed on aircraft. They’d record the details of a drive — including when the car was being driven manually, and when an autopilot system is activated. It could also detect the moment that the Autopilot system asked the driver to take over.

Authorities say that a black box could help them pinpoint the cause of a crash, the BBC reported.

However, while new cars would be fitted with black boxes, the proposal doesn’t specify how the law would affect self-driving vehicles already on the road, AutoBlog notes.

The legislation is being spearheaded by Minister of Transport Alexander Dobrindt, who is planning on releasing a slew of new traffic laws “to make Germany the lead supplier for automated and networked vehicles,” according to self-driving car blog 2025ad.

This proposal comes hot on the heels of a fatal Tesla crash that occurred when one of their cars was in Autopilot Mode. Joshua Brown, of Pennsylvania, was killed when his Tesla crashed into a truck, which the autopilot mode seemingly failed to detect.

For their part, Tesla Motors has said that the technology is still relatively untested, and that autopilot mode is disabled by default on all of its vehicles.

A draft of the legislation should be sent to other German ministries for review later this summer, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Transport told Reuters.