For many years, car companies have slowly moved towards making self-driving cars the future. Because of this, autonomous vehicles have been the topic of interest for quite some time. Self-driving cars may turn into the future of all cars in several years, but for now they’re still being tested because of safety concerns involved. And also, there’s the fact that autonomous automobiles may take the job(s) of many Americans. Autonomous cars may be the future of automobiles, but there may be dangers we haven’t fully encountered yet.
Acccording to Matt McFarland, Google’s autonomous cars have had some issues with ‘disengagements”, where the car senses an issue within itself and alerts the test driver to retake control to avoid any sort of wreck. At first these “disengagements” occured after around 785 miles in 2014, but later, only every 5,318 miles in 2015. Then there were also times where the self-driving car ceased driving for just sensing garbage on the road, whereas people will not do that, which could cause a pileup on an interstate or highway. Also, the car could possibly sense something is wrong when the sensors are accustomed to receiving an update every 10 milliseconds, but instead it receives it in 11 milliseconds.
Google refers to this issue as “software discrepencies”, which could potentially cost drivers thousands of dollars or even their lives. As Steve G. Steinburg stated, what is the purpose of cars, with the knowlegde of humans or greater, when they can only perform actions at a very basic level? How is the car considered smart or safe, when the car goes around a very distinct corner, only to misjudge a gaurdrail as an obstruction and slams on its brakes. Now yes, these various car manufacturers are working on resolving these issues, but who’s to say that this issue doesn’t bring itself back up later on?
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Upon viewing “Jobs Threatened by Automated Vehicles” chart, anywhere from 59%-83% of all driving jobs could be at risk because of automated vehicles. They may possibly turn out to be safer, but they will take many jobs away from Americans, which could hurt the company in the future. This huge loss in jobs could extremely hurt our countries economy.
A range from 2.1 million to 3 million jobs could potentially be lost, and could exponentially be a catastrophic failure to implement autonomous vehicles into the workforce. No matter how safe self-driving vehicles may be, it would never be a wise action to order the replacement of human-drivers in place for autonomous drivers in order to save the company a fraction of money. However, employers could buy a select few autonomous vehicles to fill in gaps where there are a loss of workers, in say, shipyards, carrying shipping containers from one side of the shipyard to the other, which could bring faster deliveries and possibly more money.
But, how far is too far when considering “safe” vehicles throughout the world and in the workforce? Many believe that it’s when they start taking jobs from hard working Americans in all departments. The placement of autonomous vehicles would extremely disrupt the countries economy. Also, from the words of Kevin Cashman, “Among the downsides of these technologies – they are expensive and would impose many costs if adopted on a large scale – it’s also important to note that they have not proven their long-term sustainability, either environmentally or economically.”
Which means, even if they were to implement autonomous vehicles, like, self-driving buses, many people like the poor, would not be able to afford the higher prices of using this transportation method. Also, noone knows just how durable autonomous vehicles could be, or how they would act with each other on this big of a scale. With automation on this huge of a scale, the sensors on the vehicles could possibly go crazy after just one incident which could cause more accidents and possibly more lives. Before there could be automated public transportation, it would need to be very affordable and very safe.
Should these self-driving cars be used to carry your child to school, or any other location? Some believe that this could happen one day, considering some believe that many pre-teens are ready for some independence, but without driving themselves to their destination(Petrilli p. 87). With the technology of the autonomous car, parents would not have to drive their kid everywhere like they do now. This could save many parents hours upon hours of time that would have been spent driving their child to soccer practice, or anywhere else.
That being said, how is it possible to fully trust the vehicle, and also, how could the parents make sure the child never left without permission beforehand? Who’s to say that the automation would carry the child to the correct destination the first try. Or maybe there is an accident along the way, with no way for the child to call home. Or maybe theres a traffic jam and the self-driving car takes a much longer, more dangerous route without the parents knowing about it. Perhaps the car could be fitted with a tracking system so the parents could make sure the car is carrying the child to the correct destination. Automated cars could take alot of time out of parents days by no longer needing to drive their kids so often, but this idea would need some major research and experimenting beforehand to avoid a catastrophe.
Maybe one day there could be driverless buses delivering children to school and home. Of course an adult or two on the bus to keep the children from causing too much trouble. But, will the parents be able to trust the automation, even after it has been tested? With a huge amount of children on the bus a lot could go wrong and cause a catastraphic accident, especially while driving down the highway at high speeds(Petrelli p. 87). It seems that, in the future, parents could choose between driving their children to school, or trust a self-driving car to drive their child or even a self-driving school bus.
Self-driving cars are not so bad, they could possibly be great for elderly. If a parent or grandparent needs to go to the doctor, but they can not legally drive, they could still go to the doctors office or the store without feeling like they are a burden by not requiring someone else to drive them. Not that everyone hates taking their time to drive their family or friend around, but some may feel that way. You must factor in, if someone has a busy workplace, or having to work overtime every day, that plays a major role in how often they could be able to drive someone where they need to go. With self-driving cars, the elderly could more easily go to get groceries or simply enjoy a Sunday drive around town even without a license. This could allow someone who can not legally drive to go places without needing someone else to be present, which could be great for people with a busy schedule and can not always be present(Jacob).
The question is not “if there will be a self-driving car”, but “when will there be a self-driving car”. The only question will be, whether or not anyone will buy them in the future. Autonomous vehicles could possibly make their way into everyones garage or driveway. Just how far can this future technology go before it reaches its peak and can go no further? Only time will tell for these high-tech cars, but technology will only go so far. The vast population of car owners and car buyers will decide whether or not to use these “safer and smarter cars”.
