Advanced technology always opens new doors and opportunities that can be used in order to create a higher-quality world. One of the newest opportunities that technology is giving to society is the driverless cars. A driverless car (sometimes called a self-driving car, an automated car or an autonomous vehicle) is a robotic vehicle that is designed to travel between destinations without a human operation. Many studies have showed that each year more than 32,000 people are being killed by car accidents. This is an enormous number of people being killed. Based on researches this amount of people is larger than the amount of people that died during the Ebola outbreak. Except the people losing their lives there are 2.5 million people each year …show more content…
Many people are not careful and/or they do not pay attention on their driving. Eventually this gets to be one of their habits which sometimes costs them their lives. Many researches have proved that, “a high technology is used in order to make the self-driving cars safer, such as radar, cameras, computer systems” (Peterson). All these technology is used in order to avoid all the human, driving mistakes and make the death rates caused by car accidents completely disappear. Nowadays death rates are high, because there are so many new diseases discovered, people are dying from smoking cigarettes, drugs and killing each other. So what the government and the people should look for is a way to decrease these death rates and driverless cars help to reach this goal. There are studies that show that in the United States every 15 seconds someone dies from a car accident, because they were using their phone while driving and some of these people are extremely important. Some of them are doctors who have saved lives, some are lawyers who have helped the truth to shine and others are teachers who have helped kids to learn what is right and what is wrong. When people drive back from work, when they are drunk, or when they are tired it is obvious that, “Fatigue impairs judgement and reduces the time taken to react in an emergency” (Lambert 23). Tired drivers and drunk drivers also cause a high amount of death rates and many times they hurt others that were not tired, not drunk, and were driving just fine. Their mistake costs not just their lives, but also other people’s lives which is unfair. The saddest part about it is that the accidents happen so quick that because of their tiredness or drunkenness they do not have enough time to react and avoid the accident or at least make it a less impacting one. With the driverless cars, people will not have to worry anymore about if they are tired,
Have you ever feared that your loved one or even someone very close to you will be involved in a fatal car accident every time they left the house? Drunk driving is a factor in nearly one-third of all fatal accidents. Even if you aren’t the one driving, you are still at risk any moment to get involved in an accident that could’ve been prevented. By legalizing fully self-driving cars, we won’t have to fear the pain of losing a loved one. We could have a quick fix to all of this madness easily. The number of traffic accidents are soaring at 1.3 million deaths a year. Drunk Driving is still one of the number one causes of vehicle deaths; therefore, the government should allow self-driving cars to become legal to combat the issue. If we don’t act now to combat this issue we will have to deal with the consequences it will bring.
Imagine a world where you can get into a car, push a button, and go where ever you want to go without the hassle of driving. Several car companies, such as Tesla and Honda, have been rumoring about self-driving cars (also known as autonomous cars). The real question people ask is how do they work and when are they coming out?
Finally, if an accident were to occur involving a self-driving car, the question of “who is responsible” is raised. This is a difficult question that needs to be addressed with laws that govern liability in these situations.
One reason driverless cars should replace human drivers is because they are safer and offer a comprehensive solution to a problem that plagues the entire world – automobile accidents. Currently, according to Ryan C. C. Chin, around 1.2 million deaths occur worldwide each year due to automotive accidents (1) and in the U.S. alone “more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in 2008, 90% of which died from human mistake” (Markoff 2). Most of these accidents involving human error are caused by fatigued, inattentive, or intoxicated drivers. However, according to Sergey Brin’s the Pros and...
It is the year 2015. Technology immerses us into a pit of pleasure, ease and luxury. We are enlightened by fancy Smartphones, fast computers, and simple online shopping. At this point, the human race is striving to create or destroy anything that is willing to harm us. We are at war against ourselves and we are not taking enough action against the fatal occurrences that happen everyday. We collect data to show the safeties and dangers of activities that we participate in every day, but we continue to emerge ourselves deeper and deeper into the statistic that automobile accidents are. Keeping all road-users aware of statistics, laws, and the dangers of speeding is the key factor in preventing the 2.35 million injuries and 40 thousand deaths
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.
Statistics shows that every 51 minutes in the United States someone is killed in a drunk driving accident, that’s an equivalent to 27 people every day (www.dosomething.org). Instead of choosing to walk, take a cab, or have a designated driver, drivers choose to drive. By making the choice to drive under the influence, they are risking everything. In addition to choosing an alternative way home, repeat offenders would have to use the ignition interlock (Impaired Driving). Laboratory studies have shown that most drivers, even experienced drivers, are impaired with the low BAC level of 0.05 (Fell, J. C.).
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
Another safety benefit of the self-driving car is the issue of unsafe teen drivers on the roads. In a study conducted by Sheila Sarkar and Marie Andreas, fifty five percent of 1,430 teenage drivers admitted to engaging in risky behaviors while driving (Sarkar 687). The newscast regularly reports about fatal car accidents which involved teen drivers who were racing or driving drunk. In addition, teen drivers are a novice on the road and have a learning curve, this at times can be dangerous. Self-driving cars would not have the learning curve nor would they have the urge to drive unsafe like many teens
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
People don’t know what to think about driverless cars. There are many debates on whether or not americans are ready for this kind of technology. Also people don’t know how safe they are or if people know enough about the advanced technology. People are already distracted while driving a driverless car could create more new problems than it fixes. Driverless cars are not ready to be on the road.
The engineering that goes into a driverless car covers all areas of mechanics, computing software and so on which still tends to frighten some drivers of its monstrosity on the inside. In the article “Google Cars Becoming Safer: Let the Robots Drive” it states that, “The economic lift from ridding the roads of human-driven vehicles would be over $190 billion per year. That would primarily come from reducing property damage caused by low-speed collisions”(Salkever). The point is that when driverless cars hit the road the cost of low-speed collision and save consumers money will be reduced. In the article “ Google Driverless Cars Run Into Problem: Cars With Drivers” Slakever states that “One Google car, in a test in 2009, couldn’t get through a four-way stop because its sensors kept waiting for other (human) drivers to stop completely and let it go. The human drivers kept inching forward, looking for the advantage — paralyzing Google’s robot”(Bosker). Current drivers have never followed the rule of the road, which have made the road more prone to any accident. Drivers have found the upper hand on not following traffic laws that makes manufacturing driverless car more meticulous to decrease accidents and breaking traffic laws. The fact that driverless car sensors can detect the errors of other human driven car is extraordinary. Human driven cars are trying to stick to the status quo of the roads when in reality human driven cars are breaking valuable innovation that will make the roads safe for generations to
The technology of self-driving cars is similar to the technology of sound in film. There are many competitors in the self-driving car industry like in the movie sound industry in the 1920s. Countries across the planet were trying to get sound for movies, specifically in the United States, the USSR, and Germany. Small countries and big countries are all competing to come out with a self-driving car, such as the United States, Singapore, and Japan. There are many companies like RCA (Radio Corporation of America), Warner Bros., and Western Electrics that were competing to create sound for the pictures. Both sound in film and self-driving cars had engineers experimenting to create the technology. Western electrics created the Vitaphone, which became
Being in the public sphere, it is pertinent that government officials strictly avoid dangerous and distracted driving, while simultaneously endorsing organizations in the field of road safety and issuing Public Service Announcements and advertisements in the dangers of using gadgets while driving. As the force behind restrictions and laws, it is important for such authorities take stock of national statistics and accordingly shape bills against dangerous driving practices. The simplest way to do this is to ban the use of cell-phones while driving, which has been implemented in 47 states in the United States, but adherence to such laws is not ensured and monitoring the same is unfeasible. A better way to prevent accidents is to invest in technology and research on self-driving cars, internal regulation of cell-phone use (such as technology that will prohibit accessing a cell-phone network inside a vehicle), and programmes that will educate younger drivers on their role in avoiding cell-phone related accidents, as a large volume of cell-phone related accidents involve