Do Driverless Cars Need Drivers?
By Rutt Bridges
Would you rather fight traffic, or catch up on Facebook, or chat with friends on your cell phone? Today, people try to do all of these at once—endangering our lives and the safety of our roads. Thanks to the rapid advancement of driverless vehicle technology, however, these risks may be coming to an end. Equally as promising, driverless cars stand to give inexpensive mobility to millions of Americans who currently have none and may need it most. Greater service, improved safety, and expanded access? Driverless vehicles could turn the transportation system as we know it on its head.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles, rightly understanding the value of getting driverless cars on our public streets, has the unenviable task of proposing regulations for this promising and rapidly evolving technology—it is no small feat to try to write rules for vehicles still under development. I recently participated in a DMV workshop that gave the public the opportunity to comment on the proposed regulations. Without question, the most controversial point of the discussion was, and continues to be, the condition that driverless cars must have a licensed driver present when underway.
More than 2.5 million disabled people call California home, and many of these Americans are incapable of operating a car or cannot afford a specially-equipped vehicle. Some are virtually homebound, hardly able to participate in society or find or maintain employment. Too often, public transportation only takes them from where they are not to too far from where they want to be.
For them, the door-to-door service of an inexpensive autonomous taxi is a life-changer. The same is true for a single mom trying to find a good job close enough to home to feed her kids and still have time to help them with their homework. Driverless cars can solve that problem in less time and for less money than bus fare. And seniors will be able to give up their keys without giving up their freedom.
Unfortunately, the DMV’s currently proposed rules require a specially trained and licensed operator be present in driverless vehicles at all times, removing any advantage over today’s taxis or conventional cars. Though the DMV undoubtedly had safety in mind when it created this rule, the requirement may risk making roads less safe—not more—and here’s why.
The regulations presume the driver can quickly take control of the vehicle in the event of an emergency—but how many days of incident-free driving would it take before that driver decides to start texting instead of diligently watching the road? After periods of inactivity, studies suggest people can take as long as seven seconds to appraise and react to a situation. By comparison, driverless cars can respond within a tiny fraction of a second by swerving or hitting the brakes, reacting far faster than the fastest Formula 1 driver.
Analysis from the U.S. Department of Transportation shows that 94 percent of accidents are due to distraction, drowsiness, driver error or drunkenness. Driverless cars don’t suffer from any of these problems.
The number of Americans that have lost their lives due to the lack of safety on our roads and highways is a national disgrace. Over 550,000 people have died in vehicle crashes so far this century—100,000 more than died fighting all of America’s 20th-century wars. These aren’t just statistics; they are human lives. Driverless vehicles have the potential to reduce automobile accidents by as much as 90 percent.
California must ensure the safety of its citizens and promote the use of driverless cars at the same time, holding onto its place as the world’s haven for innovation while serving as the nexus of a once-in-a-lifetime shift in human mobility. In the name of saving lives and giving new freedom to millions, I hope California will reconsider this restriction.
Rutt Bridges is a geophysicist and author of Driverless Car Revolution. Bridges is a member of the Autonomous Vehicle Task Force at Securing America’s Future Energy, a group of leading experts facilitating the widespread deployment of driverless vehicle technology.
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See? The scapegoat. That’s what is needed to drive an autonomous car. That’s exactly what I’m forecasting. I just can’t imagine government and car corporations saying “don’t worry, in case of an accident it’ll be always our fault, either wrong code or wrong road”.
It doesn’t have to be either or… automakers or owners. Right now, the statistics aren’t in yet.
Once autonomous cars prove themselves to be safer using the raw numbers… Insurance companies will take note… as they always do.
They will provide discounts for autonomous driving cars, like other safety systems. But much more so, since very few technologies prevent accidents, rather they just minimize human damage often at the expense of increased damage to vehicle.
Insurance companies can offer “no fault insurance”. Regardless of what happened… the insurance can pay.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2015/10/09/volvo-will-accept-liability-for-its-self-driving-cars/#28e612923d80
They already are! =-)
Well, hey, if the car companies are willing to take on the full insurance responsibilities, that’s great. For us. Not for their stockholders, who will lose billions, however.
I wouldn’t be so sure… it’s a strategic move. Companies don’t hurt themselves to advance technology (unless there’s a huge upside on the other end). Volvo likely sees this as helping them sell more cars – which they calculated will offset the cost of litigation.
…They’re not oblivious. They realize the costs/benefits of their decisions.
We’ve had the first at-fault crash of a Google car.
http://electrek.co/2016/02/29/google-self-driving-car-first-at-fault-accident/
Hey, as long as Google pays all the liability, casualty, collision, etc. costs every time there’s a crash… then maybe people will tolerate it.
I think this is why Google is putting their electric cars into a separate corporation. So that if it goes bankrupt from the liability lawsuits for the people it maims and kills, it won’t affect the rest of Google.
Car insurance doesn’t drive people into bankruptcy so there’s no reason why safer cars would drive a company into bankruptcy.
Wrong, they’re not magic, they will suffer from ‘driver error’ with the driver being a computer with as much intelligence as a pancake.
That’s a pretty smart pancake. I think I’ll cook one up and shove it into my roomba so it will learn to clean the floors properly. (So far the darn thing hasn’t found a single cat wearing a shark costume passenger.)
“California must ensure the safety of its citizens and promote the use of driverless cars at the same time,”
Yes government, please take care of me, I lack any will, self determination or interest in freedom. Government and big business, you have exhibited such a profound interest in data security, system security and transparency. I know you would never acquiesce to the money driven wants of a corporations. Please let me put my full faith and life in your hands. You have done such an exemplary job that my military records have only been exposed at least twice, my veterans records thrice that I know of. Your inaction in regulation has only seen my visa account breached five times that I’m aware of and my SSN used by someone not from this country. Somehow, other countries are building high tech drones and other technologies that sure looks an awful lot like tech our country has come up with.
Yes, I am definitely ready to have cars driving me and loved ones relying on the proven safe and uncrackable software coding that this country is know for. There’s no way on earth someone would ever accidentally or intentionally develop a tool/toy/object that could cause interference with any of the sensors that are incorporated into a connected vehicle.
Please, save us from ourselves so we can text! Driver-less Cars NOW!!!
/S