Technology Conclusion Autonomous Vehicles

While researching the topic of this paper, I decided to conduct a survey on public opinions on the topic of autonomous vehicles. For this self-conducted research, I assembled a Google Form page that asked the sample various questions that investigated the opinions and beliefs regarding self-driving cars: the most common form of autonomous vehicles. This survey drew results from a sample size of 437 people, a fairly strong amount of people to draw conclusions from.

When asked if autonomous vehicles would make driving safer or more dangerous, 94.1% of the people surveyed stated that these automobiles would allow for a safer environment, while 5.9% believed that they would be more dangerous to society. Based on this information, we can observe that an overwhelming amount of people see self-driving cars as being a more viable option for saving lives.

Furthermore, when questioned about whether or not self-driving cars should be legal, 88.2% of the sample believe that they should while 11.8% think that they should be illegal. Although the results still display a significant difference, a greater percentage of people were against the idea of implementing autonomous vehicles. Although most people view self-driving cars as being safer, this does not mean that they believe that they should be legal. This is likely due to how young the technology is, or the common uncertainties on the issue. An example of common uncertainties, as one of the people surveyed stated, is that the vehicles could be “hacked into”, thus rendering control of the vehicle to an unknown person with unknown intentions, or that if the system that allows the vehicles to communicate with one another goes down, then there could be catastrophic car crashes and many deaths. Another mentioned concern mentioned that having a fully autonomous system would “take the fun out of driving.” However, this is a subjective concern as not all people enjoy driving for reasons such as fearing the risk of accidents.

In conclusion, the struggle faced by governments is that they have to consider whether or not the benefits of adopting autonomous vehicle technology outweigh the risks involving human lives. Due to the recent incidents of self-driving car accidents, pressure has been put on legislatures to figure out how to safely resolve this issue. Extensive thought must be put into this issue as human lives are the major cost. Any lackluster solution may result as a threat to public safety and would also decrease support for this technology. After taking into account both viewpoints of the argument and thoroughly analyzing all of their reasoning, I tend to agree with the supporting side that favors full implementation of autonomous vehicles worldwide.

As previously mentioned, the benefits of autonomous vehicles including but not limited to increased safety, efficiency, and productivity are compelling incentives to purchasing a self-driving car. These countless advantages discussed display the possibility of much clearer and safer roadways around the world. However, the largest priority, as with everything in life, is safety. There needs to be adequate testing and enforcement to ensure that these vehicles can operate in conditions, similarly, if not identically to a human being. Safety is the most controversial subject regarding autonomous vehicles, and I believe that full adoption of this technology will improve safety overall.

Having a vehicle monitor and calculate its every decision is much safer than a human driver. Since autonomous vehicles would be operated by a computer with multiple superhuman sensors and cameras at its disposal, the vehicle would be able to see things that a human could not, and would thus be able to act instantaneously in situations when compared to a human. Furthermore, having computers operate a vehicle eliminates human error altogether by removing common causes of accidents such as road rage, drowsiness, driving under the influence, distractions, and other human related weaknesses. Therefore, due to the lack of human error and a computer’s ability to calculate issues that a driver could not, autonomous vehicles would indeed be a safer option as opposed to manually driving.

Furthermore, fully adopting autonomous vehicles would allow mankind to become a more productive society. For many people, a notable amount of time is taken up in a vehicle whether they are commuting, traveling, or simply transporting from one place to another. If autonomous vehicles were adopted, the large amounts of time spent driving could be put towards more productive activities such as working or sleeping. This would allow human nature to become more productive as less time would be wasted. In addition, the time that would otherwise be wasted driving may be decreased as autonomous technology allows for more efficient driving thus enabling vehicles to calculate the quickest way to get to a destination, and if this technology were completely adopted, all vehicles would be able to communicate with each other and thus be able to travel at faster speeds.

Moreover, the autonomous technology in these vehicles is a simply fascinating human endeavor that displays how the world is evolving. Limiting this technology from being adopted will result in narrow inventions, thus restraining the potential that we have to make the world a better place. Completely adopting autonomous vehicles will allow for a safer and more productive environment, legislature simply needs to be smart with their challenging method of adopting autonomous vehicles. Recently, the concept of self-driving cars has evolved from being a dream to becoming a reality. Imagine waking up for work only to have your automobile awaiting to act as your personal chauffeur, with all you having to do is press a button to begin your commute. This is what life could be like in the near future if autonomous vehicles were adopted.

The more autonomous vehicles are implemented the safer they will be, considering that if the majority of automobiles are self-driving and operating on the same navigation system, collisions will be few and far between. Think of it as an air traffic control system: they are safe because all traffic is visible and controlled by the same network. If there were planes that the system was not tracking (in the case of this illustration: non self-driving cars) collisions would be more frequent as the system would have a harder time accounting for them as outside forces.

Adoption, however, is a tricky matter as it would be extremely difficult to get the worldwide population to purchase an autonomous vehicle. In a perfect world, the vision is for everyone to have a Level 5 self-driving car where every vehicle could seamlessly communicate with each other, knowing exactly where every automobile needs to go. This system would be efficient as every vehicle would precisely know the needs of neighboring cars such as if one needs to take an exit to refuel, or if a malfunction has occurred vehicles could avoid a hazardous vehicle experiencing problems. The vehicles would thus adjust accordingly. For example, by changing lane position or speed in order meet the needs of neighboring vehicles, and ensure safety for all passengers on the road. This efficiency would also result in decreased travel time as vehicles that are in sync with each other could seamlessly travel faster.

Nevertheless, this imagination would be difficult to completely achieve in the near future. What could be done in order to implement autonomous vehicles sooner? In my opinion, the best all around solution for adopting an autonomous system would be to add dedicated lanes for self-driving cars on the highway, much like the famous High-Occupancy Vehicle system found in major cities where only vehicles with multiple passengers can take advantage of in order to reduce fuel emissions. With dedicated lanes, autonomous vehicles would be able to communicate and travel in unison on their own without disrupting natural human traffic or being at risk due to human error of non-autonomous vehicles. This solution would satisfy both sides of the argument and also give people a choice whether or not they would like to manually drive, thus preserving the feeling and experience of driving. In addition, the inclusion of dedicated lanes of autonomy would add a sense of security on the road by making passengers feel more comfortable.

For example, if a passenger was in a dedicated lane of autonomy and felt unsafe for any reason, they would have the option to exit the lane and manually drive and confidently feel a greater sense of security. As a result of these dedicated lanes, people will soon realize how efficient of a system it is to be fully autonomous. Much like the dedicated High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes currently existing today where the incentive is to be more friendly to the environment and have less traffic, autonomous lanes would have incentives of being safer, quicker, and more efficient. In theory, people will see the benefits of using these dedicated lanes and, as a result, be incentivised to purchase an autonomous vehicle.

Over time, continuous existence and natural adoption of self-driving cars such as Tesla will also cause a ripple effect and inspire people to purchase these vehicles. The more people purchase autonomous vehicles, the more the price of the technology will decrease resulting in more adoption of this technology worldwide, much like the adoption of the personal computer and smartphones in recent years. Although it always has the chance to fail, technology is improving over time which allows for kinks to continuously be worked out. In the case of autonomous vehicles, the heavy reliance of technology risky at first, but with time comes improvement in the realm of the computers controlling the vehicle. Since Tesla self-driving technology has been on the roads since 2014, it already has had years to progress, therefore displaying the potential for autonomous vehicles to become safer over time. Despite the recent self-driving car accidents flooding the media, these are just two instances that received negative media attention.

The bottom line is simple: accidents are inevitable. In the United States alone, the country where the Uber and Tesla crashes occurred in March 2018, six million accidents occur per year killing approximately 37,000 people (Road, para. 11). Even though six million accidents occur per year, the media rarely reports on them, but once an autonomous vehicle is involved, the media negatively reports on it. Although few faulty instances attract media attention, hundred of thousands of miles are driven autonomously each day without any discrepancies. Ultimately, at this point autonomous vehicles can be introduced and accepted into society at large. Therefore, due to the overwhelming benefits outweighing the few negative instances of autonomous vehicles, this technology should be implemented worldwide because it would allow for an improved driving experience in every aspect.

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