What Could Go Wrong?
Self-driving cars are supposed to make driving safer--much safer.
In data collected by the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey, it was estimated that in 94% of crashes, the cause of the crash can be attributed to driver-error. With that in mind, removing humans from the driver seat may have potential to reduce the probability of accidents by 94%.
Autonomous vehicles seem great, yet they may have some weaknesses as well.
In data collected by the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey, it was estimated that in 94% of crashes, the cause of the crash can be attributed to driver-error. With that in mind, removing humans from the driver seat may have potential to reduce the probability of accidents by 94%.
Autonomous vehicles seem great, yet they may have some weaknesses as well.
- CAMERAS
- The cameras in the vehicle can be challenged during certain weather conditions, such as extreme weather, rain, fog, snow, or differing angles of light. This may make it hard to read traffic lights, detect other cars, and more.
- LASERS
- Similar to cameras, certain forms of weather, such as precipitation (snowfall, rain, fog) can confuse them.
- UNLEARNED ENVIRONMENTS
- Environments that contain heavy traffic, construction, accidents, fast-approaching emergency response vehicles may all be new to the car. Since these environments are new and unlearned, the car will have to learn along the way and find a way to respond given the programs it has, and then pass what it has learned onto other cars via cloud computing.
- AMBIGUOUS ENVIRONMENTS
- In conditions where there is a four way stop, or other conditions where there may be a human involved and they are gesturing, a car may not know how to interpret that and it may get confusing. The car may not understand a "wave" to go, like a human would.
- TRANSITION PHASE
- The transition phase between human-driven cars and the autonomous vehicles may be dangerous the autonomous vehicles are learning the new environments and trying to figure out how to respond to things such as pedestrians, other vehicles, traffic, weather, etc. whereas a human already knows how to. At the beginning, as the autonomous vehicle is learning, there may be a spike in accidents before the car has "learned".
- HACKING AND REMOTE CONTROL
- Since the car is autonomous, this means it is composed of many computers, and a lot of software. This also means that it will be vulnerable to hacking. If a hacker were to get into the system, they would be able to control every aspect of the car. This has the potential to be deadly, and could even be used as terrorist attacks or ways to target a specific person.
- COMPUTER MALFUNCTIONS
- Since the car is composed of many computers and a lot of hardware, it will be difficult to ensure that every single piece of technology is working perfectly, 100% of the time. Especially in conditions where there is extreme weather, such as heavy rain, snow, or heat, all of these may cause the computer to malfunction and may prove harmful to the passenger(s).
- INDUSTRY REGULATION
- Since autonomous vehicles are so new and are not out on the roadways yet, there have not been any specific baseline standards set for them. This leaves the consumer to chance when first purchasing one of these vehicles.
- COST
- The estimated price of a self-driving car once they hit the market is $250,000. This is due to all of the sensors, cameras, the radar, computers, inertial navigation system, GPS, amongst other pieces of technology that are required for the car to drive itself, and then also the pieces that are required to actually build the car. This may mean that an autonomous vehicle is way out of the price range for many people, so even though these cars are supposed to be safer, they may stay off the roadways due to their cost.