Self-driving cars have received much attention throughout the recent past. Some of the well-known automobile brands that exist out there in the world, such as Tesla have already started manufacturing these cars as well. However, people are in two minds whether to go for self-driving cars or not. That’s mainly because people have a doubt over the safety associated with self-driving cars. Therefore, it is important to deep dive and analyzes whether self-driving cars are in a position to promote safety or not.
Waymo – A perfect example for an autonomous car
Waymo is one of the best initiatives taken for the manufacturing of self-driving cars. Waymo was formerly considered as the self-driving car program of Google. Waymo recently announced that they are looking forward to producing electric self-driving cars with zero-emission. These cars guarantee to limit the emission of CO2 by one gigaton per year. As a result, global warming can be trapped within 2 degrees. The pilot project of Waymo is yet to be conducted along with the participation of hundreds of individuals in Arizona. These cars will be introduced to the people, and they will be asked to focus on their day-to-day work while traveling in these cars.
The electric cars that were introduced by Waymo are associated with the knack for being knocked down by human drivers. This fact has been proven from statistical information as well. According to the stat, the accident rate associated with Waymo is significantly higher than the accident rate associated with experienced drivers. Human errors can be considered the most prominent reason behind these accidents. However, no accident is linked with serious injuries or fatalities. As per the original concept, the Waymo cars follow the traffic law that exists in the area.
As a result, these cars would automatically break if they were supposed to. For example, these cars have been programmed to apply brakes when pedestrians approach them, and they would automatically break at crosswalks. However, human beings have not been adapted to such lawful behavior. Their expectations are different on the road. This fact has increased the number of rear-end collisions that take place on the road.
Different levels of autonomous cars explained
The above statistics don’t lead us to the conclusion that self-driving cars can increase the rate of accidents. They are in a position to contribute towards road safety as well. For example, these cars are in a position to effectively reduce the number of teens who come across accidents on the road. A considerable percentage of teenagers who live in the United States are being subjected to accidents. In other words, it has been reported that more than 8,000 teenagers who are aged between 16 to 20 years die because of road accidents. Lack of experience and reckless driving can be considered as the main reason behind these accidents. With the help of auto-driving cars, the number of teenagers who are being subjected to accidents can be minimized effectively.
If all the teenage drivers who are from Phoenix started using Waymo instead of their traditional cars, the number of accidents that take place in the area can be reduced by 12,000. Therefore, Waymo focuses more on aligning their cars for teenage drivers, to reduce accidents. If all the teenage drivers who live in the United States start using Waymo, it would be possible to eliminate one million accidents that take place per year. This is a huge amount that cannot be neglected. If all people start using autonomous vehicles, the roads will become safer. On the other hand, drivers will be provided with an ideal environment to keep on driving with peace of mind.
These benefits associated with self-driving cars are increasing in popularity. As a result, most of the states, cities, and federal agencies in the United States have started encouraging people to use more autonomous vehicles. However, this is not a universal initiative as of now. Some of the politicians are looking forward to delaying the introduction of autonomous vehicles to the consumer market. That’s mainly because they fear that autonomous vehicles would become extremely popular among people and their businesses based on traditional technologies would collapse.
On the other hand, insurance companies also fear autonomous cars. If autonomous cars are the only vehicles that we can find on the road, there won’t be any accidents. As a result, people won’t get the need to ensure their vehicles. Moreover, autonomous vehicles have been able to receive the same level of trust as the other transportation systems available. This has further delayed the deployment of self-driving cars on the roads.
Self-driving cars are much different from air-flight. These cars need to earn the trust of people to become successful. However, self-driving cars can be considered as a creation of human beings. Human beings have been experimenting with new technologies and adapting them for hundreds of years. These inventions can be found in almost all the vehicles that are being released to the market as well. Therefore, people don’t need to keep any doubts in their minds about the safety associated with self-driving cars.
However, new technologies that are being introduced to the world take some time to earn the trust of people. The same theory can be applied to self-driving cars as well. When flights were introduced, people feared traveling in them. However, nobody thinks twice before traveling on an air flight now. Therefore, we can keep our fingers crossed, expecting autonomous cars to become popular among people in the future.
Final words
As mentioned earlier, it takes time for people to develop trust in technology. Therefore, we cannot expect people to change their mindsets and start using self-driving cars overnight. However, five automobile accidents take place within the country for any given hour. As a result, people rarely have time to adapt according to technology. They will have to think about getting the best out of technologies that are available for them sooner.