In the New York Times "Room for Debate", I came across the article "Are We Ready for Driverless Cars" and most of the debaters are on board with this idea. They plan to actually start selling some by the year 2020. They have already developed advances with automobiles such as electronic stability control and anti-lock brakes which to most people have been extremely helpful. It has greatly reduced the number of accidents within a year compared to normal drivers without the adjustments. Over 2,200 lives have been saved from 2008 to 2010.
A professor of electrical engineering John Villasenor, supports this idea 100% and claims that with self-driving cars "it will greatly reduce the number of injuries and fatalities attributable motor vehicle accidents." Also, he claims that we will "have the option of entering in a destination on a smartphone, and then sitting back to read an electronic book while being whisked along the highway." Well doesn't that just sound amazing? Being able to sit in a car without touching the wheel and just relax while technology does everything for you.
Information scientist Nidhi Kalra, also agrees with enabling self-driving cars yet she is not 100% supportive of it and for specific reasons. Her words were that "we should let driverless cars hit the road, once they are safer than the average human driver." That makes perfect sense because there many adjustments that must be added to make the car safe enough for human presence. Many of the conditions include "adverse weather, difficult terrain, complex road rules, unusual objects in the road, etc. Once again that's only a few modifications that must be taken care of to ensure safety.
I agree with her because I wouldn't want to be in a vehicle where I know it's not as safe as when a person is driving the car. It wouldn't feel the same because there are always thoughts that something will go wrong. Maybe the system will have a glitch in it or it will not brake at the right time. There are many things that can go wrong in situations like that. The main question would be, is it safe?
-Gabriel Hernandez
In my opinion, any type of driving is not 100% safe because there are too many variables not in our control that make room for error (ex: drunk drivers, bad weather, natural accidents). However, I agree with you that manually driven cars are safer. Self-driven cars can glitch and accidents that could have been prevented can occur. This is why they should have a built in manual mode, so the car can be physically driven in an emergency situation. Technology is always improving, and one day self-driven cars may be the safer choice, but as of right now it’s not.
ReplyDeleteI think that driverless cars would be interesting if we were to see them on our roads. However, I wouldn't trust a driverless car until they are safer than human drivers or until they make up the majority of the road. I think that driverless cars would preform best in a scenario where they are driving next to other driverless cars. I'd think that if a driverless car were driving on a road with other driverless cars, it would be safer for the passengers because the actions of driverless cars would probably be more rational and less erratic than human drivers. I would be more comfortable if future driverless cars had capability to be driven by a human driver as a precaution in case the car malfunctions.
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