Pressure is building on the auto industry executives and regulators to ensure that automated driving technology is deployed safely following the fatal crash of a Tesla Motors Inc Model S in Autopilot mode.

Tensions surrounding efforts to turn over responsibility for braking, steering and driving judgments to machines has been highlighted by the first such known accident, which occurred in Florida in May. Plan to outline guidelines by the U.S. government for self-driving cars this month could be delayed by the accident.

The federal and Florida state authorities, which are looking into whether the driver was distracted before his 2015 Model S went under a truck trailer even as the exact cause of the Model S crash is still being investigated.

As analysts said the accident was likely a short-term setback, shares of Tesla and Mobileye NV, the maker of the camera vision system used in the Model S, rose following a fall in the shares earlier last week when an investigation of the crash was made known.

Research that shows 90 per cent of accidents are caused by human mistakes is being pointed out by advocates of automating driving. However critics point that machines could also falter when they encounter situations they are not designed to handle.

The biggest single-year jump since 1966 in traffic deaths in the US was noted in 2015 when the deaths rose by 7.7 percent to 35,200 – the highest annual tally since 2008, said the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The toll could be cut by technology such as brakes that automatically engage when sensors detect an impending crash say federal officials and industry executives.

In a move that could prevent thousands of rear-end crashes annually, in March, 20 automakers agreed with regulators to make automatic emergency braking standard on nearly all U.S. vehicles by 2022.

However due to problems with such systems, automakers have issued numerous recalls.

There are plans to propose regulatory guidelines by mid-July to clear the way for wider deployment of automated driving systems, the U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx had told Reuters earlier this year.

“This technology is coming. Ready or not, it’s coming,” Foxx had said.

However earlier last week, he cautioned there are questions “that are probably unanswerable at this point” and the guidelines could take more time.

As long as vehicle design “allows a human driver to operate the vehicle with a wheel and pedals”, there are relatively few hurdles to fully autonomous vehicles being used on U.S. roads, the NHTSA said in a report in March.

He would accept technology that was “two times” better than conventional vehicles at preventing collisions, NHTSA chief Mark Rosekind had said at a conference in Detroit last month.

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart said driverless cars will not be perfect, just hours before the crash became public knowledge.

“There will be fatal crashes, that’s for sure,” Hart told the audience at the National Press Club in Washington. However he added that even if the vehicles are not ready, such accidents will not derail the move toward driverless cars.

(Adapted from Reuters)