Journal #6

According to Chris Urmson who is the head of engineering for Google’s Self-Driving Car Project in his article “Progress in Self-Driving Vehicles”, Self-driving vehicles offer the promise of reducing accidents, enabling people who cannot drive to get around, and reduce congestion.  Traffic accidents are the leading cause that people dead accidentally, so reducing the rate of traffic accidents is the important that we need to do. However, I don’t think that self-driving cars can help with decrease of traffic accidents efficiently.

It is a common sense that there are always errors in machines. For example, when did your phone or computer crashed last time? It must happen recently. What if it happens to your self-driving car, it would cause accidents that may cost your life. Traffic accidents must be the tragedy of the commons. More seriously, if an accident happens to self-drive cars, none can take the responsibility. It is unfair for “driver” to be responsible with accidents because, actually, the “drivers” don’t drive the self-driving cars. It is hard to blame the manufacturers, either. Manufacturer cannot make sure that every self-driving car is perfect.

Though, there are lots of problems of self-driving cars, I still want to drive these automated vetches. First, I don’t know how to drive. Drive-less cars benefit all the people who cannot drive due to physical disability or something else.  Second, currently, self-driving cars are high-technical products whose yield rate is really low. Yet I believe that, in the future, the more advanced technology will improve the yield of self-driving cars and make them safer. Last but not least, self- driving cars is a good solution of traffic jam. Just imagine, if all the cars on the road is automated, the cars can adjust their speed to adapt the environment where other cars are do the same thing which makes every car can have a higher speed than ever. 

Reference

Urmson, C. (2015). Progress in Self-Driving Vehicles. Spring Bridge: From the Frontiers of Engineering and Beyond, 45(1). Retrieved from www.nae.edu