This month, Germany’s transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, proposed the first set of rules for autonomous vehicles(自主驾驶车辆). They would define the driver’s role in such cars and govern how such cars perform in crashes where lives might be lost.
本月，德国交通部长亚历山大·多布林特提出了第一套关于自动驾驶车辆的规则。这些规则将定义驾驶员在这样的车辆中的角色，并管理这些车辆在可能造成生命损失的碰撞中的表现。

The proposal attempts to deal with what some call the “death valley” of autonomous vehicles: the grey area between semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars that could delay the driverless future.
该提案试图解决一些人所说的自动驾驶车辆的“死亡谷”问题：半自动驾驶和完全无人驾驶车辆之间的灰色地带，这可能会延迟无人驾驶的未来。

Dobrindt wants three things: that a car always chooses property(财产) damage over personal injury; that it never distinguishes between humans based on age or race; and that if a human removes his or her hands from the driving wheel — to check email, say — the car’s maker is responsible if there is a crash.
多布林特想要实现三件事：汽车始终选择财产损失而非人身伤害；它不得基于年龄或种族区分人类；如果人类从驾驶轮上移开手——比如检查电子邮件——那么如果发生碰撞，汽车制造商应承担责任。

“The change to the road traffic law will permit fully automatic driving,” says Dobrindt. It will put fully driverless cars on an equal legal footing to human drivers, he says.
“对道路交通法的修改将允许完全自动化驾驶，”多布林特说。他说，这将使完全无人驾驶的车辆与人类驾驶员在法律上享有同等地位。

Who is responsible for the operation of such vehicles is not clear among car makers, consumers and lawyers. “The liability(法律责任) issue is the biggest one of them all,” says Natasha Merat at the University of Leeds, UK.
在汽车制造商、消费者和律师之间，谁应对这类车辆的操作负责并不清楚。“责任问题是其中最大的一个，”英国利兹大学的纳塔莎·梅拉特说。

An assumption behind UK insurance for driverless cars, introduced earlier this year, insists that a human “be watchful and monitoring the road” at every moment.
今年早些时候引入的英国无人驾驶汽车保险背后的一个假设是，人类“始终要保持警惕并监控道路”。

But that is not what many people have in mind when thinking of driverless cars. “When you say ‘driverless cars’, people expect driverless cars.” Merat says. “You know — no driver.”
但许多人在想到无人驾驶汽车时，并没有想到这一点。“当你说‘无人驾驶汽车’时，人们期望的是真正的无人驾驶汽车。”梅拉特说。“你知道的——没有驾驶员。”

Because of the confusion, Merat thinks some car makers will wait until vehicles can be fully automated without operation.
由于这种混淆，梅拉特认为一些汽车制造商会等到车辆能够完全自动化无需操作时再行动。

Driverless cars may end up being a form of public transport rather than vehicles you own, says Ryan Calo at Stanford University, California. That is happening in the UK and Singapore, where government-provided driverless vehicles are being launched.
加州斯坦福大学的瑞安·卡洛说，无人驾驶汽车最终可能成为一种公共交通形式，而不是你拥有的车辆。这正在英国和新加坡发生，那里政府提供的无人驾驶车辆正在推出。

That would go down poorly in the US, however. “The idea that the government would take over driverless cars and treat them as a public good would get absolutely nowhere here,” says Calo.
然而，这在美国可能会受到冷遇。“政府接管无人驾驶汽车并将它们视为公共利益的想法在这里绝对行不通，”卡洛说。

1. What does the phrase “death valley” in Paragraph 2 refer to?
   A. A place where cars often break down.
   B. A case where passing a law is impossible.
   C. An area where no driving is permitted.
   D. A situation where drivers’ role is not clear.
   答案：D

2. The proposal put forward by Dobrindt aims to __.
   A. stop people from breaking traffic rules
   B. help promote fully automatic driving
   C. protect drivers of all ages and races
   D. prevent serious property damage
   答案：B

3. What do consumers think of the operation of driverless cars?
   A. It should get the attention of insurance companies.
   B. It should be the main concern of law makers.
   C. It should not cause deadly traffic accidents.
   D. It should involve no human responsibility.
   答案：D

4. Driverless vehicles in public transport see no bright future in _.
   A. Singapore B. the UK C. the US D. Germany
   答案：C

5. What could be the best title for the passage?
   A. Autonomous Driving: Whose Liability?
   B. Fully Automatic Cars: A New Breakthrough
   C. Autonomous Vehicles: Driver Removed!
   D. Driverless Cars: Root of Road Accidents
   答案：A