An Accident Waiting To Happen
A self-driving car is an automated car that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. These cars are becoming substantial, but the real question is, are they safe? Car accidents are one of the top leading causes of death. Nearly 1.3 million people die per year, that is 3,287 a day, according to the Association for Safe International Road Travel. Imagine having a computer system be in charge of your car’s every move. Would you trust it?
One of the biggest questions people ask about these cars is, how reliable is the technology? At any given time, the computer system that is in charge of your car, could shut down and stop working. Imagine your car going down the highway at a speed of 60 mph and all of a sudden the system glitches, and now you are in an accident.
Accidents involving these cars would then become a bigger question. Who’s at fault for the crash? These cars are programmed to the obey the law no matter what. There is no longer a judgement call that humans typically have right before they are in an accident.
Then comes into play, the ethical part of life. What happens if there are a group of kids running in the middle of the road chasing after their soccer ball, and you can’t go anywhere except in the direction of the kids, or to the right where you would hit a fire hydrant. In that moment, your ethics and your cars control is totally different. You may want to hit the fire hydrant, but your car has been programmed to keep going and obey traffic laws. How would you feel explaining to those kids’ parents that there was nothing you could do because you aren’t in control of your own car.
Switching over to the self driving cars would put many on the unemployment list. The need for cab drivers would decrease and many people would lose their job. Then, there is the question of whether or not a person should have to learn how to drive a car or own a license.
Although
it would be nice to have a car that can drive you wherever you told it to, there are many safety hazards to it. It’s a controversial topic and there will always be positives and negatives when it comes to technology taking over.
