Israeli company wanting to test self-driving equipment of cars in Estonia

TALLINN – The Israeli technology company Mobileye is wanting to test solutions which assist drivers and in the future enable self-driving on Estonian roads, the daily Eesti Paevaleht writes.

Raz Peleg, sales director of the Eastern and Central Europe division of Mobileye, an Israeli company newly acquired by Intel, paid a visit to Tallinn last week.

Mobileye's technology has two functions, the first of which helps to prevent collision. In addition to that, the system should also wake up drivers who have fallen asleep at the wheel and are about to drive off the road as well as detect pedestrians who have walked onto the road and are distracted by their smartphones and so on.

After meeting with Peleg, Allan Aksiim, member of the robot vehicles expert group of the Government Office of Estonia, said that the idea has merit. "The application on offer is interesting and not very costly," he said.

"Our good luck and bad luck is that we are in the European Union and vehicles have norms that are changed centrally. For example the deadline for the identification technology of cyclists -- we cannot overthrow that," Aksiim said. In addition, unlike Israel, Estonia cannot close its borders for cars which do no have Mobileye systems, as this would be against the rules of the common market.