The driverless cars are vehicles that are able to sensing their environment and moving without human. We need a lot of things to make sure the automatic cars can move safely. For example, a robot car need radar, used laser, high-powered cameras and sonars. Then the softwares combine sensors and software to control, guide and drive themselves. The robot car require high technology and enough safety to have the license to drive on the road. However, currently, there are no legally fully-autonomous vehicles in the United States.
The problems of technology and the impact of the society impede the permission of the robot cars. Robot cars can increase the usage of cars, since people don’t required anymore conditions to drive a car. People then consider the place of employed drivers and the bad influence on environment. Moreover, scientists are still overcoming the invalid detection of surrounding in heavy rain and snow and other humanized things, like follow the command of a traffic police, that technology is unable to achieve with current level. But, we have the half self-driving car to lay the groundwork and practice for a full automatic car.
Indeed driverless cars still need years to be able to appear on our daily life.
I think its important to acknowledge that if driverless cars are going to become popular, so do their prices.
The largest source of benefit from cars would be for the poor. Yes, there has been a recent increase in car ownership per se, however with that comes an extremely high mortality rate. Those who are poorer are more likely to die driving on the road compared to those who are more well off. The main issue here is the age of the car. Poorer people own cars that may not have all parts working as efficiently as they once did. For example, cruise control, night vision/high beams and other safety features are crucial in preventing accidents and allowing the driver to stay alert and safe on their behalf as well as other drivers and pedestrians. I think if self-driving cars were more affordable, the poor would have a greater chance of access and thus the statistics of driver/automobile fatalities among the poor would significantly decrease with the help of technology.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/12/driverless-cars-affordable-safety
Thanks for providing the information on driverless cars. It was interesting seeing what problems are currently associated with them, like weather sensors and too many cars on the road, and what scientists and researchers will have to focus on before they become available for everyday use. It was also interesting learning about the different technology they use, like the radar and high powered cameras, from what you wrote. I believe that driverless cars are certainly and inevitably in our future, even if it may not be anytime soon, but recently I read about how driverless car could get hacked and cause a lot of damage. Even a small hack could hinder emergency services, cause collisions and gridlocks, reduce traffic flow, etc. Thankfully, research is being done to see how these possible hacks could affect the future of driverless cars and how to prevent them, including using multiple networks so that if a large scale hack happened, it would only affect a certain amount of drivers. I am very curious to see how this turns out in the future and hope they get these problems ironed out so that our generation can see the benefits of these exciting new innovations.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2019/03/05/hacked-driverless-cars-could-cause-collisions-and-gridlock-in-cities-say-researchers/#3d63a7f82a09
Dear Cognan,
I agree that successful driverless cars are in our future but not yet in our daily life. As you mentioned, there are multiple hurdles we must get over before driverless cars are capable of what cars manned by drivers are. I found an article that address several problems with driverless cars, including ethics. How will an autonomous car handle a car crash? If it proves fatal for those in the opposing car, will it be able to report the incident or help correct it?
http://www.clickmechanic.com/blog/6-problems-facing-driverless-cars/