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Pros And Cons Of Driverless Cars

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Autonomous cars were first thought up back in the 1930’s, but were never fully researched. Five years ago, Google announced that it would begin production of these modern marvels and around two years ago, driverless cars began to make their way to the streets for testing. In 2012, that these cars started to pick up speed (pun intended) and became popular. This year marks a grand milestone for the developers of the driverless car as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “is widely expected to announce standards and mandates for car-borne beacons” (Fisher, 2013). Currently, research and testing occurs quite often in the West Coast of the U.S. California and Arizona because of the open roads. So far three states have legalized Google’s driverless cars, but there is no law that requires cars to have drivers in the first place. The most obvious benefit of having a driverless car is the fact that people do not have to drive it most of the time. Also, since it is a hands-free type of thing, drivers have more freedom to do whatever they wish …show more content…

Skeptics will complain that it is a “SkyNet”-type of situation, where artificial intelligence enslaves the human race by taking control of our technology, and that letting robots drive people around may speed up this process. There will also most likely be a problem with drinking and driving. Will driverless cars make driving under the influence okay? Or will stricter laws on drunk driving be put in place in defense that a person must have a clear head to operate heavy machinery even if it can operate itself? Environmentalists may put up a fight to prevent the destruction of land to expand highways to accommodate driverless car lanes. Also, what if a driverless car gets pulled over by a policeman, who would receive the ticket? If a car crash does happen because of a driverless car, Google could have problems with major lawsuits as well as a decline in

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