Lidar industry unites to make roadways safer for pedestrians

In recent years we have seen a tragic rise in pedestrian fatalities on our nation's roadways. Public awareness campaigns and enforcement can only go so far in stemming the tide — we must embrace innovative technologies to prevent crashes and reverse this trend.

This is why we are forming the Lidar Coalition, a global group of companies that, through U.S. policy advocacy, is dedicated to deployment of lifesaving technology that has the most potential to prevent harm to vulnerable road users.

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, pedestrian deaths in the U.S. jumped by 46 percent to 6,516 in 2020 from 4,457 in 2011. Even more alarming, the most recent statistics from NHTSA project that 42,915 people died on U.S. roadways in 2021, the highest number of fatalities since 2005 and the highest annual percentage increase in the history of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. Pedestrian fatalities increased by 13 percent over 2020, which outpaced the 10.5% increase in overall fatalities.

In exploring the cause of this trend, we can look at two factors. First, an analysis of pedestrian fatalities by state breaks down the time of day these tragedies occur. Seventy-five percent of pedestrian deaths happen in low-light conditions, such as dusk and nightfall. Second, a new report from NHTSA points to risky driving behavior such as speeding, alcohol impairment and other behaviors as responsible for 45 percent of all fatal crashes.

It is evident that to protect vulnerable road users, we should pursue solutions that — among other benefits — are optimized for dark conditions and do not rely solely on the behavior of human drivers.

The automotive sector has brought forth in recent years tremendous innovation in driver-assistance technologies and other vehicle safety features that have saved thousands of lives. Recent innovations include automatic emergency braking, forward-collision warning, blind-spot detection and other capabilities that have been safely deployed in millions of cars and trucks to detect and respond to dangerous situations on the road, and to mitigate and prevent fatal and injurious crashes.

These and other crash-avoidance features are based on an array of sensors that provide input on a vehicle's surroundings. Yet one type of sensor that is proved to expand and enhance crash-avoidance capabilities has not yet seen ubiquitous adoption. Light Detection and Ranging, or lidar, can "see" at the speed of light and in all lighting conditions, including at dusk and at night. Lidar can be used in vehicles and in infrastructure settings (e.g., lampposts and traffic lights) to enable additional capabilities that include congestion mitigation.

We believe lidar is an essential component of any vehicle safety technology intended to detect and avoid pedestrians. Lidar is its own light source and can function with equal performance in light or dark conditions, as well as in other degraded visual conditions where other sensors fall short, such as direct sunlight. Lidar also has the resolution necessary to detect and identify pedestrians, even when they are not moving. Current pedestrian-detection systems fall short at night. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that camera- and radar-based pedestrian automatic emergency braking, or PAEB, systems made no improvement in pedestrian detection in dark conditions compared with vehicles that did not have such a system.

We cannot remain complacent in the face of these sobering trends. To exclude lidar in crash-avoidance technology is to ignore half of the equation. That is why we are joining forces to pursue a common goal: We must enhance the capabilities of crash-avoidance technology and infrastructure solutions through the inclusion of lidar. Velodyne Lidar, Innoviz Technologies, AEye, Cepton, Continental, Ouster and Quanergy Systems have formed the Lidar Coalition to advocate for policies that will help to remedy the staggering rise in pedestrian fatalities in the U.S.

The Lidar Coalition seeks government recognition of these facts in policy. With multiple ongoing rule-makings such as NHTSA's proposed updates to the New Car Assessment Program, and automatic emergency braking with PAEB, it is critical that all policies reflect the capabilities and limitations of sensors incorporated into vehicle safety technologies.

Full sensor redundancy optimized to perform in all lighting and weather conditions is critical to making roads safer for pedestrians.

By working together, our industry can contribute to the development of new rules and policies that can leverage lidar to help reverse the troubling increase in pedestrian fatalities.