If that is what the future looks like, most of us will not mind the extra travel time.
Justin Haskins is the executive editor of Heartland Institute, a conservative and libertarian
public policy think tank.
CON: Driverless cars will bring about major safety and legal issues
A nationwide network of millions of self-driving cars whisking suburban commuters to work is a
pleasant vision. However, getting to that point is far from simple.
Self-driving cars have been in development for years. Their backers claim the vehicles will be ready
to take over the car market in the near future.
Having millions use these vehicles will improve highway safety, they claim. Driverless cars will
make even the far suburbs more convenient places to live, they say.
However, before those suburban dwellers can order such cars, some gigantic problems must be
overcome.
The Technology Is Not Safe
First, the technology used in those cars creates serious safety problems. Huge improvements must
be made before they can safely handle streets.
Driverless cars rely primarily on pre-programmed information about routes. If something on the
road changes, they are lost. For example, they would not obey a short-term stop sign. They also
have problems figuring out when objects such as bits of paper garbage are harmless, so they can
change course abruptly for no reason.
The vehicles simply cannot deal with the unexpected adventures that fill everyday life. Until the
cars can self-drive at all times, humans are going to have to be ready to take over at a moment's
notice.
Human Error Causes Problems
Meanwhile, Google’s self-driving car has already run into another perplexing safety problem:
human drivers.
Recently, one of Google’s self-driving cars came to a crosswalk and did what it was supposed to do:
It slowed down to allow someone on foot to cross the street. However, the human “safety driver”
panicked and hit the brakes. No one was hurt, but Google’s car was hit from behind by another car.
Driverless cars cannot work properly unless detailed road maps have been loaded into the
computers that guide them. Currently, the maps for Google’s self-driving cars have only been
designed to handle a few thousand miles of road. Developing a nationwide self-driving car system
would require countless amounts of effort and money. Car companies would need to maintain and
update information on millions of miles of roads.
Regulation Roadblocks
The development of driverless vehicles would also mean more state and federal regulation. There
would be all sorts of new rules covering how, when and where driverless cars can be used. Most
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likely, all those new rules would significantly slow the spread of driverless cars.
The use of driverless cars would also raise issues of legal responsibility. For example, who should
be held responsible in the event of a crash — the passenger, the carmaker or the designer of the
computer system? Such complicated legal issues could take years and many lawyers to sort out.
Paying The Price
Totally self-driving cars will likely not be cheap, either. One report says making a car completely
self-driving would add some $10,000 to its price.
There is also the problem of getting people to accept them. Cars are not just transportation — they
also reflect our personalities and tastes.
Imagine someone who loves driving, who enjoys zooming down the highway in a sleek sports
car. It will be hard to get them to accept simply being a passenger in a not-very-exciting computer-
controlled vehicle.
Whitt Flora is an independent journalist who covered the White House for the Columbus
Dispatch and was chief congressional correspondent for Aviation Week & Space Technology
magazine.
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