Computers in Transportation – Autonomous Cars
An autonomous car is a vehicle that does not need a human driver in order to work. These types of vehicles have an autopilot technology which allows It to get from one point to another point without the need for human interference. The technology seems far away but it’s already here and there are many pros and cons to autonomous cars that need to be looked at.
A large percentage of our lives is eaten away from our commutes to work, school, or elsewhere. Life would be dramatically changed if we could use that time wisely while our cars did all the work. As well as being time efficient, autonomous cars and other vehicles do not allow have human error that normal human run cars and vehicles
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A very important downside that people often bring up is based on ethical judgments that the cars computer may need to make. If an autonomous vehicle can not slow down in time and has to choose between hitting a car in front of it or a child beside it or vise versa. How can we be sure that a car would make the best ethical decision in a time like that? Unfortunately, that isn’t a question we can easily answer because of a few different reasons. For example, in a situation where a human is driving, the human will not ponder on which decision is more ethical. Also these situations have no good or correct solution because any outcome is poor and sad. Another important factor to think on this is that the odds of these unfortunate situations are extremely small and very unlikely. Another negative reason autonomous cars aren’t readily available to the consumer is because they haven’t been intensely studied and tested like human driven cars have. This creates a very difficult scenario where the developers have to persuade consumers and everyday citizens that these machines are safe even if they haven’t been driven thousands of millions of miles. Before most consumers feel safe there will need failure estimations and percentages of collisions and the odds of anything going
Have you ever thought that self driving cars will ever come to the market? Do you even think they are ready to be on the road? Would you have enough money to afford one? In the two Newsela articles relating to the self driving cars, driverless cars might be in the market in the next five to six years! My first reason is that you don't have to do anything when you're in the car. If you're going on a long trip you could just do your work or texting you friends or even just sit back and relax and enjoy the ride without driving at all. Right now people are inventing advanced computer systems so a self driving car can take you from one place to another without any human help. Another reason is that the self driving car can eliminate human accidents
Driverless cars are safer for humans because they have many sensors around the car so they know when to stop and they have a much greater awareness and quicker reaction time than people. Driverless cars also affect the earth that will make it safer and healthier. “Driverless cars reduce CO2 emissions by almost a gigaton a year”, and they help limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees. By making the earth a safer and healthier place, it makes people safer and healthier
Cars are now becoming much more aware and these cars are available to the general public. In 2005 there was a course for autonomous vehicles and no car completed a tenth of the course(Guerra). These cars can now park themselves, raise their wheels to avoid potholes, check if you are drifting out of your lane, check out your blind spots, they know if any object is behind you when you are backing up and most important Tesla released a car that could drive itself on highways. Eleven years ago cars like this were science fiction and in 20 years they might become commercially available (Guerra). This is the start of self-driving cars being in the hands of ordinary people and not a test group. Some people my opt out of owning a self-driving car, however they will still need to
Are Americans ready for cars that can drive themselves?, will it be safe for “ai’s” on the road instead of normal human drivers?, and how will this be beneficial to traffic, crashes, and time? In the Newsela article, “pro/con: self-driving cars are just around the corner. Is it a good thing?”, By Tribune News Service, Self-driving cars remove many of the human mistakes that cause injuries and deaths. Self-driving cars can also help disabled and elderly people get from place to place on their own. The self-driving cars that are now being developed use many forms of technology to drive themselves. Radar, cameras and other devices are used to "see" the world around the car. Advanced computer systems drive the car from one destination to another without any help from humans. Self-driving cars offer such a wealth of advantages that it makes little difference whether Americans are ready. Americans need to get ready. Self-driving cars will soon be in their rearview mirrors.
Another advantage to autonomous vehicles is reduced traffic congestion. If all traffic is controlled by computers and GPS it would mean all cars will be able to drive at the same speed which means there will be less breaking which will lead to less traffic jams. Braking distances will be decreased because the cars computer will have a faster reaction time than a human, which means cars can travel closer together. This means more cars can fit on the road at any one time. Another way it reduces congestion is at traffic lights. Autonomous cars will be able to move off instantly as soon as the light changes to green which will mean the cars behind will not have to wait as long to move off [6]. This also means more cars will be able to travel one green light compared to when humans have control of the car.
Self driving cars should continue to be produced because, self driving cars are safer than humans at driving. Although it is true that if self driving vehicles took over, 1.7 million people would be out of a job involving commercial transportation; however, the safety of self driving cars outweighs the cons (Freedman). Driverless cars are a new way to advise car safety. It eliminates human error, and allows multiple cross checks to avoid a collision. This compares to just one quick decision by someone. Normal cars require people to make logical decisions to keep themselves safe. The idea about decisions is that a person can make bad ones. Computers are not like that; rather, they have a series of processes that monitor decisions being made. Self driving cars are mechanical which mean, that they have nothing to distract them. It is said by The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that 94% of crashes occur from human error. Taking out human error will reduce the number
Most people believe that these self-driving cars are going to make our roads much safer than they are with human drivers. According to an article titled “Road Crash Statistics” by the Association for Safe International Road Travel, “nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 a day.” They also claim that road crashes is the ninth leading cause of death. Obviously automobiles are dangerous, but they are also very effective for transportation. According to Statista there were over 7 million cars sold to U.S. customers in 2014. Even though automobiles have caused so many deaths, most people really need them.
Many great technological feats have been accomplished in the past few years, one of the most notable would be the creation of self-driving cars. Along with the topic of what can be done with this technology, there is also the topic of what should be done with the technology from an ethical standpoint. Self-driving cars while not perfected are worth their innumerous benefits, despite the current limitations and drawbacks. Every year there are numerous incidents where the driver is responsible for a crash or even death. A self-driving car could be the very solution necessary to solving the abundance of accidents that occur daily across the nation. There are different levels of automation ranging on the amount of the drivers control of the vehicles. This technology is already being implemented in creative and helpful ways, and has been successfully tested.
First, self driving cars help the commute of people. The author states, “[Allow] Americans to live where they want, without worrying about their commute to work.” Like the article said an autonomous car would help families to be able to chose to live a lifestyle outside of a city and not have to worry about commute to a city for work or other activities. The article then states, “With autonomous cars, driving to work will be a breeze. Instead of being an exhausting trek, it will feel more like sitting at home on the couch watching a favorite television show.” This would make traveling to work not just easy, but it would also make it more enjoyable.
Most people thinks that driverless cars will be much safer and more efficient. A million fewer road deaths a year is just the beginning (Laird).Each year 30,000 people die in traffic collisions in the U.S. considering that 90% of U.S. auto collisions are blamed from human error- Some 40% are the result of factors such as alchohol or fatigue- we have a lot to gain by outsourcing the task of driving to computers(Griffith). Even if 10% of vehicles are autonoumous, traffic will improve drastically (Brown). If 10% of vehicles were self-driving, it could reduce the number of accidents by 211,000 and in turn save 1,100 lives, according to a 2013 study by the eno center for transportation in Washington, D.C. (Griffith). If 90% of vehicles were autonoumous, an estimated 4.2 million accidents would be prevented and 21,700 lives would be saved (griffith) . 5 main advantages of driverless cars are 1. Less or no more accidents. 2. Elderley and disabled people are able to drive wherever they want to. 3. No more boring drivving on highways (and no more tickets for speed excess…). 4. Stop looking for parking spots.
As many people head out to start their days, a good majority will get into their cars and face many split second decisions. As humans when faced with split second decisions, it is impossible to always make the right choice. Autonomous cars are unable to make ethical decisions, such as deciding which way to swerve where both either direction (right or left) could endanger others.
Currently one of the main topics of discussion in the AI community is self driving cars. Self driving cars would be much safer than manually operated cars and with a lot of work they could even be developed to form a network across the country they are in so that they can “talk” to each other. This would greatly reduce the amount of deaths resulting from cars. However self driving cars have also raised plenty of issues such as the fact they could put many professional drivers out of work. Furthermore there are many moral issues raised by automated cars, the trolley problem, a problem involving choosing between killing one or more persons as opposed to another group/person, is a very popular theory right now as self driving cars would have to
Since the beginning of self-driving cars which first began in 1925 with the creation of the Houdina Radio Control; a car operated by two cars, a transmitter, and an antenna, to now - the futuristic dream of these autonomous cars have transformed into the reality of cars we see now. These cars are nothing short of the new technology advances that have occurred over the past decade. However, with these advances many question whether or not these cars are ready to be sold, due to the fatal accident that occurred May 2016 involving the autonomous Tesla and a white truck. Due to the Tesla not being able to detect the white tractor because of technological issues, the tesla failed to stop, and since the driver was not prepared to steer, it lead to the fatal collision eventually leading to the death of the tesla owner. With the increase of these cars on the road, from companies like BMW, Daimler, Ford, Apple, Uber, and Google, this poses a serious threat to not only the people operating this autonomous vehicle but also to the surrounding drivers. I believe that autonomous cars should not be put on the road, and that these cars are not beneficial to the population.
One of the major incentives for developing autonomous vehicles is the potential impact on vehicle safety. In 2009, there were 10.8 million motor vehicle accidents in the US, resulting in 35,900 deaths (Census 2012). It’s estimated that over 90% of all accidents are due to
Extensive automation for cars focuses on either introducing robotic cars or modifying modern car design to be semi-autonomous. These could be implemented sooner as they rely less on technology that is still at the forefront of research.