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Joy Rebustes Unit 3 Final Draft Thomas Akbari 10/30/2013

Shifting into Blind Gear: Are We Ready for Driverless Cars?

That red car on the highway just cut you off. There http://www.zmescience.com/ are new dents in your car from a stranger who didnt know how to parallel park. And to top it all off, youre about to lose your mind in that 2 hour traffic jam youre stuck in. The answer to your problems may not be too far away: Driverless Cars.
This is never a good time.

As more and more car manufacturing companies take on the task of creating the next autonomous automobile, it is safe to say that one day we will never need to be behind the wheel ever again.
http://www.abarnyard.com

We have come a long way with the simple car. Years ago, you had to crank a handle to just to start the engine. Nowadays, you twist a key, crank up the radio, turn on the GPS, blast the air conditioning or maybe even turn on the seat warmer. Many cars are already partially autonomous: the Ford Focus Active Park Assist Feature uses sensors to swing a car into place for parallel and nose/tail first parking.

No more cranking!

However, parking is one thing. Driving on the open road with hundreds of people at speeds of over 50 miles per hour brings more challenges.

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Inhabitat.com

The car industry is not afraid. Google, Audi, Volvo and many more are all taking on the challenge of bringing these robot chauffeurs to life. Alan Taub, the Vice-President of Research and Development at General Motors, predicts that by 2020 drivers will be able to take their hands off the wheel once and for all [1].
Googles self-driving model

Theres good reason for the development of these cars too. Currently automobile accidents kill more than 30,000 people a year in the US, and nearly 90% of these occur because of human error
Wikipedia.org [1]

. This includes drivers who were intoxicated, too inexperienced, or just plain distracted. By automating cars, the human factor would be completely taken out, theoretically resulting in a drastic reduction in car related deaths. Volvo has promised to injury-proof its cars by 2020, and GM and Carnegie Mellon aim to develop autonomous

This could become a thing of the past

technology to eliminate car accidents [2].

This is a big deal: by having robot cars, lives could be saved. There would also be no need for designated drivers after a night out or taking turns during road trips. If someone woke up late for work, they could simply brush their teeth in the car (though this is not recommended). Plus, with the human factor taken out, those long, stressful hours of traffic may no longer exist. Studies show that some of the worst traffic jams are caused by drivers erratically pressing the brakes, because other drivers are also erratically pressing the brakes [3]. By automating driving, there would be a streamlined speed of traffic instead of irregular movement of people starting and braking. This would certainly make the commute to work a lot less painful every morning. This is all very exciting news but it is also sugarcoated. With this many luxurious results, there have to be some negative consequences.

Rebustes 3 It all comes down to control. How much

Tsminteractive.com

control do we trust giving to our technology? We cede so much of our control to our smart phones and laptops, freely giving away our personal information in exchange for a more efficient way of life. We have become very dependent. We can barely last a minute waiting in
Is this you?

an elevator without checking our phones. What about cars? Of course, the biggest issue with driverless cars is safety. In ancient Babylonia, there was a law that stated If a builder has built a house for a man, and has not made his work sound, and the house he built has fallen, and caused the death of its owner, that builder shall be put to death
[4]

. Although extreme, it does ask the question: how much do we trust our

engineers? Do we trust them enough to build something that they themselves would use? Because driverless cars are not yet developed, there are still holes in knowledge of safety. Currently these cars are not held to any professional standard to maintain safety on the roads. The standard to be implemented has to be a basis for all the car manufacturing companies to follow and to develop and perfect this could take years. It also requires addendums from experience, which means for the first years of driverless cars, we must expect the unexpected. Too easily we place our trust in our technology. Engineers must think about these unexpected events and how to prevent them. By buying these cars, we place our confidence that they have looked at every problem from every angle, especially when it comes to a matter of life or death, speeding down a highway. One safety issue that needs to be sorted is related to the cars software. Suppose there is a very intelligent hacker who has a grudge against society. Would he be able to hack into cars system and let them spiral out of control?

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Thetruthaboutcars.com

Unfortunately, there will also be issues that engineers will not be able to prevent. Driverless cars could cause serious disruptions in the labor market particularly if they start displacing the nation's 240,000 taxi drivers or its 1.6 million truck drivers
[2]

. Where

If youre a cab driver, you may be out of luck in 2020

will all of these people go? Would we all have to

replace our drivers license to accommodate the new generation who would not need them anymore? If for some reason a driverless car gets into an accident, who is legally responsible: the driver, the engineer, or the manufacturer? Currently, these cars are only legal in 3 states Nevada, Florida, and California, where Googles robot cars are currently being tested on the streets [5], but how will other states accept these drastic changes and amend their state laws? There are many details that still need to be sorted out. So before reaching for your wallets to be first to buy a driverless car, remember this is not a phone or computer. There are a lot of aspects that need to be considered, especially safety. Although driverless cars are expected to hit the roads in about a decade, this might not be enough. We must challenge these companies to lay out and consider all potential problems and develop solutions before release. Be diligent, and do your research before you decide to give up responsibility to

technology. Find out how these cars truly work. Look up the latest testing in safety. Ask questions to the sellers and become informed consumers! This way, when driverless cars finally take over, our highways will be faster, smarter and safer

Rebustes 5 References [1] Fleming, Nic. Driverless Cars: Heading Down a Safer, Faster Highway?. New Scientist, vol. 205 iss. 2754, pp. 34-37, Apr. 2010. [2] Plumer, Brad. The Weird, Counter-Intuitive Science of Traffic Jams. The Washington Post. [Internet]. Available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/24/heres-how-selfdriving-cars-could-clear-up-traffic-jams/ [Oct. 21, 2013]. [3] Neil, Dan. Driverless Cars for the Road Ahead. Wall Street Journal. [Internet]. Available: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323808204579085271065923340 2013]. [4] Code of Hammurabi. Internet: http://www.commonlaw.com/Hammurabi.html, [Oct. 22, 2013]. [5] Smith, Bryant Walker. Whos the Driver?. New Scientist, vol. 216 iss. 2896/2897, pp. 34, Dec. 2012. [Oct. 21,