Google has been getting a lot of attention lately for its self-driving cars. These are cars that have the ability to drive by themselves without the driver doing anything. They have so far been legalized in California, Nevada, and Florida only for testing and only if a driver is present in the car for safety reasons. While this sounds awesome and something straight out of a science fiction novel, is it safe, and should it be legal?
First of all, Google’s cars are the safest on the market. They have been driven more then 500,000 miles without getting into a single accident. One of these cars did get a minor fender bender in 2011, when the car rear-ended a Prius, but according to Google, this was when a person was manually driving the car. On average, human drivers get in one accident every 165,000 miles. So fender bender or not, the results are pretty impressive. Also, car crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages 4 and 34 and cost an annual $300 billion.
The average commuter spends 250 hours a year behind the wheel. Think of all the added free time you have with a self-driving car. If you do not have enough time at home to finish a project for work, then you can finish it in the car on the way to work. One would be able to text, talk on the phone and eat in their car wherever they go. If you are tired after a long day at work, then you could just fall asleep and let your self-driving car drive you home. One would no longer have to worry about a designated driver. Everyone would be able to get as drunk and wasted as they want and then let their self-driving car drive them home.
I feel that it would not be as rosy as I just laid out above. I assume that Google will do whatever it takes to make the cars as safe as possible, but we all know that technology sometimes has a glitch. It does not always work the way the manufacturers say it will. So if and when one of these self-driving cars crashes, whose fault is it? How alert should drivers/passengers be? Should we be as attentive as before and if so then what good is it to have automated cars? This could potentially be a very risky business for car companies and Google to be getting into. I think a lot of lawsuits could be filed over this from the consumer and manufacturing side.
Also, we do not know how sophisticated this technology is and what can become of it in the future? What if the light was green, but a cop was in the middle of the street directing traffic? Would the car know to watch and do what the cop tells it to do, even if it is contradictory to what the light might be telling it? Would this car also be able to properly adjust to rain, snow and icy roads? If there is construction, would the car know to follow the signs and signals from construction workers to stop and go?
Let’s say you are going on a long trip and let your self-driving car drive you to Texas because you are afraid of flying. You fall asleep behind the wheel because it is such a long ride. What happens when you run out of gas? Will your car automatically pull into a gas station and blow the horn to wake you up? I hope so because otherwise the car will just stop in the middle of the road and that would be embarrassing and dangerous.
Laws are going to have to be laid out specifying how much responsibility the owner and manufacturer have. If too much of the blame is laid on the owner, then very few consumers will feel safe enough to buy one of these cars. If too much of the blame goes on the producer, then that might make many manufacturers think that it is too risky to produce a self-driving car.
Overall, I think that self-driving cars are a pretty cool invention and could help save lives and money in the long run. I feel that many new rules would have to be written for many scenarios that could arise due to this technology. I believe that with enough time, self-driving cars can be a net positive to society as a whole.
Matthew Lindeman
Viewpoints Correspondent