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Is the world ready for self-driving cars? - Coggle Diagram
Is the world ready for self-driving cars?
Saftey Record
Major reason given by people for not wanting to use a self-driving car, but what does the eivdence say?
But humans can be unsafe drivers – they get distracted, tired, or make mistakes. In fact, about 94% of serious car crashes are caused by human error
Google: self-driving cars can go nearly three times further before having a serious accident
Another study showed the accident rate was half that of human drivers and most were minor scrapes not serious accidents.
One self-driving car company, Cruise, reported that in its first million miles, its vehicles had 56% fewer accidents per mile than average human drivers. They were 73% less likely to be in a crash that could cause injury, and 93% less likely to be the primary (main) cause of a crash
There were a couple of high profile accidents in the very ealry days of testing
Importantly, in tests so far, autonomous cars have caused zero fatalities, whereas human-driven cars sadly cause about 1 fatality every 100 million miles
Self-driving systems can have a 360° view and react in a split second. They don’t speed or drive recklessly. Overall, introducing self-driving cars could potentially reduce vehicle crashes by around 80% in the coming decades saving thousands of lives
What do we know from cities that already have them?
Waymo in USA: They currently handle 150,000 trips every week in several cities. Riders use these cars to go to work, school, shopping, or even the airport. The cars have no human driver – just passengers. This shows a lot of people already trust and use self-driving taxis in daily life
Baidu runs a self-driving taxi service called Apollo Go. It operates in big cities like Beijing and Wuhan. By late 2024, Apollo Go had provided over 8 million robotaxi rides to the public
Evidece is that people are growing comfortable with self-driving cars in areas where they already operate
There are also autonomous shuttle buses being tested in various cities and even self-driving delivery robots (for example, Nuro’s little driverless pods delivering pizzas and groceries in some U.S. neighborhoods). These case studies prove that the technology works in the real world, not just on a closed track.
Is the Law Ready?
The UK passed an Automated Vehicles Act in May 2024, with the goal of having self-driving cars on British roads by 2026
The UK law emphasizes safety and requires that autonomous cars be “as safe as a competent human driver” before they are allowed on highways
Not clear - who would be at fault if a self-driving car killed a passenger or pedestrain?
Common Concers
In a 2023 survey, about 68% of Americans said they were afraid to ride in a self-driving car
What about all the drivers who could lose their jobs? e.g. United States has around 3.5 million truck drivers on the roads, but also taxi drivers, ride share drivers, delivery drivers etc
some worry about hacking or technical failures – could someone hack the car’s computer, or what if the GPS goes down?
ethical questions arise: how will the car make split-second decisions in an unavoidable accident (the classic “trolley problem” scenario)? These unresolved questions make some people feel that maybe we’re not ready yet, until we sort out the rules.