Who would have thought thirty years ago that cars would be able to drive themselves and be a safer alternative to human-driven automobiles? Over the past decade the progress to make this dream a reality has increased exponentially. Corporations such as Uber, Tesla, and Google are all within the midst of designing autonomous vehicles that will cut costs for other organizations, allow transportation for people across the globe, and reduce pollution within our environment. Even with the emergence of a seemingly “no negatives” technology, there are some concerns from the public, researchers, and academics alike regarding the safety and morality of these vehicles. How safe do these cars need to be before they can be implemented worldwide, who is …show more content…
Vehicles collisions do not occur enough to make driving considered universally “unsafe” but they do ensue occasionally, which calls for caution when driving and allows room for the automobile industry to improve upon this statistic. The current prospective solution to reducing the number of car accidents is the implementation of self-driving cars. According to Safer-America, over the course of 132 million miles driven, self driving cars have only been involved in 14 accidents and 2 deaths have been reported . By sheer observation of these statistics, it can easily be concluded that self-driving cars are safer than human driven cars, but this fact alone does not merit a society in which self-driving cars are the norm. In order for self-driving cars to be legally condoned and regulated, I believe the public has witness first-hand the safety of these vehicles. Autonomous vehicles do not necessarily need to be any safer, but in order to ease the minds and thoughts of Americans, corporations should continue to design the safest product possible. If Americans begin to voluntarily experience the effects of self driving cars and corporations continue to build vehicles that are as safe as advertised, I assume it will not take long for society to transition from human-driven cars to autonomous
For a while, Self Driving Cars, have never really been a thought, to be thought about in the driving industry. It has always been the regular transportation, like regular cars, trains and other types of transportation for getting around. It was crazy enough to have thought about self driving cars, but now to start to make and produce self driving cars, is even crazier. The question is, is it safe to have these cars on the road? Also what kind of hazards might these vehicles be for people who decide to purchase them? Bob Lutz from (www.cnbc.com) states that “"The autonomous car doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, doesn't text while driving, doesn't get road rage,". This shows that in Bob’s opinion, the self driving car, could be safer than the
Self-driving cars are now hitting a few roadways in America, and are showing people just a small glimpse into what could be the future of automobiles. Although Google’s self-driving cars are getting a lot of attention now, the idea of a self-driving car has been around for quite a while actually. These cars have been tested to their limits, but the American people have yet to adopt the technology into their everyday lives. A brief description of their history, how they work, and finally answer the question, will self-driving cars ever be adopted widely by the American public?
Companies like Google, Tesla and Nissan, among others, have announced over the past few years that their companies are trying to develop self-driving or autonomous cars [Ref. 1 and 2]. Self-driving cars can provide many benefits to the average consumer. Studies have shown that because computers can react and process information many times faster than a human being, crashes on streets and roads can be decreased with quick and consistent evasion maneuvers by the autonomous car. They can also help maximize fuel economy by calculating the most direct and fastest routes. When the driving of an autonomous car demonstrates that the computer can safely and reliably transport the passengers to their destination, this frees up the passengers to do other things that they would not normally be able to do if they were driving the car manually. For this reason, self-driving cars can help maximize productivity of their passengers.
The term autonomous refers to the capability of acting independently, or having the freedom to do so. A self-driving car is an autonomous car, which has the ability to sense its environment and navigating without any human operations. These types of cars are built to make safe and smart decisions on the road. In the past years, automobile companies have begun to introduce advanced driver assistance systems that are capable of parking, switching lanes, and braking in case of an emergency on their own, without the driver’s assistance. Automated vehicles are capable of maneuvering through street traffic, as well as other natural and man-made obstacles along the way. Therefore, this technology might completely change the methods of transportation.
Ethical issues are, among those, the most notable ones. In “Why Self-Driving Cars”(2015), it arises a typical ethics dilemma when a driverless car can be programmed to either save the passengers by endangering the innocent nearby or sacrifice its owner to avoid crashing into a crowd. Knight(2015) cites Chris Gerdes, a professor at Stanford University, who gave another scenario when a automated car can save a child’s life but injure the occupant in the car. The real problem is, as indicated by Deng(2015), a car cannot reason and come up with ethical choices and decisions itself like a human does as it must be preprogrammed to respond, which leads to mass concerns. In fact, programmers and designers shoulder the responsibility since those tough choices and decisions should all be made by them prior to any of those specific emergencies while the public tends tolerates those “pre-made errors” less(Knight, 2015; Lin, 2015). In addition to the subjective factors of SDCs developing, Bonnefon and co concludes a paradox in public opinions: people are disposed to be positive with the automated algorithm which is designed to minimize the casualty while being cautious about owning a vehicle with such algorithm which can possibly endanger themselves.(“Why Self-Driving Cars”,
It might be hard to see where the self-driving car could have issues with safety but an interesting question arises when an accident is unavoidable. The question posed is “How should the car be programmed to act in the event of an unavoidable accident? Should it minimize the loss of life, even if it means sacrificing the occupants, or should it protect the occupants at all costs? Should it choose between these extremes at random?” (ArXiv). This is a very interesting question surrounding ethics. I’m not sure if there is a right answer to the question, which could stall the self-driving car industry. Before self-driving cars are mass produced a solution needs to be found to the question about unavoidable accidents. Although this question is a problem, there may not be a need to address the problem. It is said that “"driver error is believed to be the main reason behind over 90 percent of all crashes" with drunk driving, distracted drivers, failure to remain in one lane and falling to yield the right of way the main causes.” (Keating). Self-driving cars could eliminate those problems entirely and maybe with all cars on the road being self-driving cars, there would be no “unavoidable accidents”. Safety is the main issue the self-driving car is trying to solve in transportation and seems to do a good job at
Inventors hope to help people with autonomous cars because “autonomous cars can do things that human drivers can’t” (qtd. in “Making Robot Cars More Human). One of the advantages that driverless cars have is that “They can see through fog or other inclement weather, and sense a stalled car or other hazard ahead and take appropriate action” (qtd. in “Making Robot Cars More Human). Harsh weather conditions make it difficult and dangerous for people to drive, however, the car’s ability to drive through inclement weather “frees the user’s time, creates opportunities for individuals with less mobility, and increases overall road safety” (Bose 1326). With all the technology and software in the car, it can “improve road traffic system[s] and reduces road accidents” (Kumar). One of the purposes for creating the driverless car was to help “make lives easier for senior citizens, people with disabilities, people who are ill, or people who are under influence of alcohol” (Kumar). It can be frightening to know that that we share share our roads with drivers that could potentially endanger our lives as well as other people’s lives. How can people not feel a sense of worry when “cars kill roughly 32,000 people a year in the U.S.” (Fisher 60)? Drivers who text while driving or drink and drive greatly impact the safety of other people, and Google hopes to reduces the risk of accidents and save lives with the
In July 12, The New York Times reported a news: “Inside the self-driving Tesla fatal accident”, which again caused enormous debates on whether self-driving cars should be legal or not.
Self-driving cars are the wave of the future. There is much debate regarding the impact a self-driving car will have on our society and economy. Some experts believe fully autonomous vehicles will be on the road in the next 5-10 years (Anderson). This means a vehicle will be able to drive on the road without a driver or any passengers. Like any groundbreaking technology, there is a fear of the unforeseen problems. Therefore, there will need to be extensive testing before anyone can feel safe with a vehicle of this style on the road. It will also take time for this type of technology to become financially accessible to the masses, but again alike any technology with time it should be possible. Once the safety concern has been fully addressed
Automotive executives touting self-driving cars as a way to make commuting more productive or relaxing may want to consider another potential marketing pitch: safety (Hirschauge, 2016). The biggest reason why these cars will make a safer world is that accident rates will enormously drop. There is a lot of bad behavior a driver exhibit behind the wheel, and a computer is actually an ideal motorist. Since 81 percent of car crashes are the result of human error, computers would take a lot of danger out of the equation entirely. Also, some of the major causes of accidents are drivers who become ill at the time of driving. Some of the examples of this would be a seizure, heart attack, diabetic reactions, fainting, and high or low blood pressure. Autonomous cars will surely remedy these types of occurrences making us
With the introduction of autonomous vehicles, various social dilemmas have arisen into the mainstream of debate. One of the biggest questions to come up is whether autonomous vehicles should be primarily utilitarian in nature, meaning that they reduce the total number of injuries and deaths on roadways as much as possible, or self-protective in nature, meaning that they protect the occupants of the vehicle no matter what, in every scenario. These two can't be mixed without causing unrest and debate on whether the correct decision was made by the vehicle; it has to be one or the other. However, when taking into account the primary purpose of developing autonomous vehicles, I believe that they should serve a utilitarian purpose, minimizing the
120467 Fall Benchmark In a consumerist society that constantly looks for the “next best thing,” companies in all industries push to update their products. Telephones have evolved into smartphones. Computers that could take up an entire desk have evolved into slim laptops. Traditional gaming systems have evolved into virtual reality.
Growing up everyone saw Star Wars or some other futuristic movie where people would put their vehicle on autopilot and it would drive itself. That knowledge alone shows the self-driving cars is by no means a new idea. The possibility of them being an actual legitimate goal however is the new idea. There are several different ways that these cars could come into existence all include sensors to gauge distances and all that, but the most prominent idea involves a lot of pre-mapping and understanding of the surrounding world. Many questions arise surrounding all of this, but this paper will focus on the map and the technology surrounding them.
But it may take some time till we get there, there is still some things to be figured out before they are fully here. Two terms for the switch to autonomous have become standard in the auto industry. There's the path of evolutionary to autonomous vehicles where they eventually get better and better and more high tech as time goes on. So coming soon, today's cars will have more self driving features, and there will be many more autonomous options coming bit by bit. For example,Tesla's autopilot feature, is a form of evolution in vehicles. Autonomous cars are a whole new era in the car and vehicle industry. And even better, with more technology comes the "revolutionary" path. That's where cars will be completely self driven, not only autopilot like the Tesla, but completely self driving, like some of the ones Google is working on. It will start as test vehicle, and become more and more mainstream like autopilot vehicles as they will be able to drive in more places. There's a big debate over which path is safer, and which one is the better path, but soon both of the paths will eventually converge.(Tesla
In theory, the autonomous car is amazing, unfortunately the reality is far more dim. There are so many things wrong with autonomous cars, and no one wants to face the harsh reality of all the problems. Safety is the main reason people would want an autonomous car, however robots don’t learn, they have to be programmed. Most people only trust autonomous cars because of the science behind them. Believing that science can do better than humans, on the surface that can seem true.