Self-Driving Cars Argumentative Performance Task
Student Directions:
You have been assigned to write a persuasive research paper which takes a position on the benefit of an emerging technology. You do
some research and decide to write about self-driving cars. You find that while some people consider self-driving cars to be extremely
safe and beneficial for humans, others argue that self-driving automobile technology is too dangerous, or is being implemented in a
risky way that causes more harm than good. As part of your initial research, you uncover four sources which explain the potential
positives and negatives to self-driving car technology.
After you have reviewed these sources, you will answer some questions about them. Briefly scan the sources and the questions that
follow. Then, go back and read the sources carefully to gain the information you will need to answer the questions and finalize your
research.
In Part 2, you will write an argumentative essay on a topic related to the sources.
Research Questions:
After examining the research sources, use the remaining time in Part 1 to answer question(s) about them. Your answers will be scored.
Also, your answers will help you think about the research sources you have read and viewed, which should help you write your essay.
Part 1: Sources for Performance Task
Source A: “What Are Self-Driving Cars? The Technology Explained.” Ed Garsten, [Link]. January 23, 2024.
This article from a business periodical explains the tech behind self-driving cars, as well as pros and cons of autonomous vehicles.
What Is An Autonomous Vehicle?
An autonomous vehicle is defined by the University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems as one that uses “technology to
partially or entirely replace the human driver in navigating a vehicle from an origin to a destination while avoiding road hazards and
responding to traffic conditions.”
The SAE’s six levels of what it terms “automated” driving ranges from the first three levels (which start with zero), where a driver is
behind the wheel and in control, but is aided by various automated warnings or safety features such as blind spot warning and
automatic emergency braking. Levels 3 and 4 represent technology in which the vehicle is self-driving under certain circumstances but
may require a human driver to take over. Finally, level 5—a fully autonomous, or self-driving, vehicle that does not require a human to
operate the controls. This is the only level at which a vehicle is considered fully autonomous.
How Do Self-Driving Cars Work?
Self-driving cars see what’s going on around them using three main electronic “eyes”—radar, cameras and laser-based LiDar, which
stands for light detection and ranging. All three feed data into on-board processors, using sophisticated software, algorithms and
machine learning to send signals to the vehicle’s actuators to trigger appropriate actions such as braking, steering and acceleration.
The array of sensors can detect a wide variety of road features and obstacles such as lane markings, curbs, pedestrians, cyclists or
other vehicles. This is done either visually, through cameras, or by bouncing light impulses or radar signals off of surrounding objects.
While self-driving automation technologies help improve safety, they are not 100% infallible, and their effectiveness can be
diminished when sensors or lane markings are covered by snow or other heavy precipitation.
What Are The Pros and Cons of Driverless Cars?
Self-driving vehicles where there is either what’s known as a “safety driver” on board or no driver at all are currently in use, mainly by
fleets that include warehouse yard trucks that transport goods from one contained location to another. Companies such as Kodiak
Robotics and Gatik operate self-driving commercial trucks on certain routes with safety drivers on board.
While Kodiak and Gatik aspire to run their trucks with no human on board, taxi services such as Uber and Cruise are examples of
when self-driving technology goes awry. Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, was forced to shut down its robotaxi service after
one of its cars was involved in an accident that injured a pedestrian. In 2018 a driverless Uber robotaxi with a safety driver aboard
struck and killed a bicyclist in Tempe, Arizona.
Conversely, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based May Mobility recently launched a transit service in Sun City, Arizona, using self-driving
Toyota Sienna minivans with no backup driver aboard after successful testing.
Advantages of Self-Driving Cars
Self-driving cars offer a number of advantages over vehicles requiring hands-on drivers including convenience, access to mobility,
efficiency, cost-savings and traffic congestion.
For those incapable of driving due to age or disabilities or without access to conventional methods of public transportation, self-
driving taxis and other transit vehicles are seen as a way to provide mobility to get to errands, work or medical appointments.
Commercial operators see self-driving vehicles as boosting cost-savings and efficiency because they can run for longer hours without
having to stop for meals or breaks, and they require fewer employees.
Cars and trucks with self-driving safety technology called automated driver assistance systems, or ADAS, are already reducing traffic
congestion and accidents. A report by the National High Traffic Safety Administration notes ADAS helps reduce traffic accidents
because they “assist a driver by anticipating imminent dangers and working to avoid them.”
The combination of reducing traffic jams due to accidents and potentially decreasing the number of vehicles on the road when self-
driving transit becomes more prevalent provides promising environmental benefits. A University of Michigan study concluded that
when “savings from the driving efficiencies associated with self-driving vehicles are factored into the equation, the net result is a
reduction in lifetime energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions of up to 9% compared to the conventional vehicles.”
Challenges of Self-Driving Cars
The notion of widely available fully autonomous cars relieving travelers from any of the duties and stresses of driving remains fraught
with challenges that range from cost to safety concerns. No matter how well any of the technology works, none of it so far emulates
human thought, logic or instincts to make split second decisions.
However, taking the human element out of the equation also eliminates distractions or emotions from affecting the vehicle’s operation.
For that reason, fully self-driving cars are viewed as potentially safer since the technology is designed to operate the vehicle safely and
logically by detecting and reacting to traffic conditions and the route it’s programmed to follow.
That brings up a question of ethics. Since self-driving cars are basically robots programmed to react a certain way in a given situation,
they cannot make an ethical decision, for instance, to avoid a collision. Should the car take action to prevent it from striking a person
or a group of people? Germany passed a law prioritizing saving human lives over animals.
Serious accidents such as those in California and Arizona have contributed to fear and concern on the part of many communities that
would just as soon not have driverless vehicles plying their streets.
Other challenges to wider adoption of self-driving cars include weather, where sensors and road markings could be obscured by snow,
sleet or a hard rain. Overall cost remains a major obstacle to private ownership of fully automated vehicles as well.
The Future of Self-Driving Cars
Consumer appetite for leaving the driving to technology is growing and they’re willing to pay for it, leading automakers to boost
ADAS and other automation offerings, perhaps paving the way for fully self-driving cars and trucks to one day be available and
affordable for individuals.
Indeed, the world will likely be affected in five key ways, according to artificial intelligence company Allerin: fewer traffic accidents,
reduced car ownership, automated logistics including deliveries, improved livability due less noise and air pollution from fewer
vehicles on the road and no parking or traffic tickets since autonomous vehicles can pick up and drop off passengers then go on their
way.
It’s not certain if all cars will eventually operate without a human behind the wheel and at least partially in control. According to
experts, any transition will be at a snail’s pace, projecting that in 2030, only 4% of new passenger cars sold will be installed with level
3 or higher automation functions, increasing to just 17% in 2035.
Bottom Line
Don’t discard your favorite driving hat yet. While automakers are rapidly offering more sophisticated automated driver assist
technologies, full, self-driving vehicles are likely to remain primarily in the realm of fleets and commercial operators for the
foreseeable future.
Source B: “A Fatal Tesla Crash Shows the Limits of Full Self-Driving”. Dana Hull and Craig Trudell, Bloomberg. June 4, 2025.
This source describes a self-driving Tesla which struck and killed a grandmother who was in the road helping to direct traffic.
The setting sun was blinding drivers on the Arizona interstate between Flagstaff and Phoenix in November 2023. Johna Story was
traveling with her daughter and a co-worker in a black Toyota 4Runner around a curve that turned directly into the glaring sunlight.
They pulled over to help direct traffic around two cars that had crashed.
Back before that curve, Karl Stock was behind the wheel of a red Tesla Model Y. He had engaged what the carmaker calls Full Self-
Driving, or FSD — a partial-automation system Elon Musk had acknowledged 18 months earlier was a high-stakes work in progress.
In a few harrowing seconds, the system’s shortcomings were laid bare by a tragedy. The Tesla hit Story, a 71-year-old grandmother, at
highway speed. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Tesla driver, Karl Stock, was traveling at 65 miles per hour in his Model Y, according to the crash report police compiled. As
multiple cars ahead began to brake or came to complete stops near the scene of the first crash, the footage appears to show the Tesla
maintained its speed.
“Sorry everything happened so fast,” Stock wrote in a witness statement for police. “There were cars stopped in front of me and by
the time I saw them I had no place to go to avoid them.”
Story’s death — one of 40,901 US traffic fatalities that year — was the first known pedestrian fatality linked to Tesla’s driving system,
prompting an ongoing federal investigation into whether Full Self-Driving poses an unacceptable safety risk.
As the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigates whether Tesla’s human-supervised driving system is potentially
defective, the company is proceeding with plans to continue to deploy a small number of vehicles without anyone behind the wheel. A
spokesperson for NHTSA said the agency will take any actions necessary to protect road safety.
The crash report for Karl Stock’s fatal striking of Johna Story doesn’t mention Full Self-Driving or whether Stock tried to override
Tesla’s system. Stock wasn’t cited1, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Public Safety said. The victim’s family has sued
Stock, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Tesla.
The fatal collision — and the involvement of Full Self-Driving — came to light because of a standing general order from NHTSA that
requires Tesla and other carmakers to report crashes involving cars with driver-assistance systems engaged. Tesla did not report the
crash until seven months after the incident, according to data collected by NHTSA.
Bryant Walker Smith, a lawyer and engineer who advises cities, states, and countries on emerging transportation technologies, warned
that Tesla’s push to deploy driverless cars may be premature. Crashes like the one that claimed Story’s life expose the limits of the
hardware Tesla relies on for its driving systems, according to Smith, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina. The
company uses a third of the number of sensors that Google’s Waymo driverless taxi vehicles have. Whereas Waymo employs an array
of different kinds of sensors — cameras, radar and lidar — Tesla utilizes only one.
“There is a reason why Superman could shoot lasers from his eyes, but also uses his eyes for seeing. You want redundancy,” Smith
said. “It is shocking to many people that Tesla has such confidence in a single type of sensor.”
That single type of sensor Tesla relies on is cameras. The company places an array of them in each vehicle it sells to capture road
signs, traffic lights, lane markings and surrounding cars. Other automakers and autonomous-driving technology companies also use
radar and lidar, which emit energy — in lidar’s case, laser pulses traveling at the speed of light — to detect the distance of surrounding
1
cited: ticketed/charged (meaning the Tesla driver, Stock, did not receive a ticket for the accident which killed Mrs. Story.)
objects. As active sensors that generate their own signals, they’re not affected by external lighting conditions and function better than
cameras in direct sunlight.
Tesla’s online owner’s manual for the Model Y cautions that the vehicle’s front-facing cameras “may not detect objects or barriers that
can potentially cause damage or injury,” and that “several external factors” can reduce their performance. The company says the
cameras aren’t intended to replace human drivers’ visual checks or substitute careful driving.
Source C: “The life-or-death case for self-driving cars.” Bryan Walsh, Vox. May 4, 2025.
This source is an Opinion-Editorial article by the editor of [Link] and author of a book on technological risk in the future.
I have some bad news: You are almost certainly a worse driver than you think you are.
Humans drive distracted. They drive drowsy. They drive angry. And, worst of all, they drive impaired far more often than they should.
Even when we’re firing on all cylinders, our Stone Age-adapted brains are often no match for the speed and complexity of high-speed
driving. There’s as much as a 2.5-second lag between what we perceive and how fast we can react in a vehicle traveling 60 mph,
which means a car will travel the equivalent of two basketball court lengths before its driver can even hit the brake.
The result of this very human fallibility is blood on the streets. Nearly 1.2 million people die in road crashes globally each year,
enough to fill nine jumbo jets each day. Here in the US, the government estimates there were 39,345 traffic fatalities in 2024, which
adds up to a bus’s worth of people perishing every 12 hours.
The good news is there are much, much better drivers coming online, and they have everything human drivers don’t: They don’t need
sleep. They don’t get angry. They don’t get drunk. And their brains can handle high-speed decision-making with ease.
Because they’re AI.
AI takes the wheel
The average American adult will spend around three years of their life driving. If robots could take the wheel instead, well, think of all
the Netflix shows we could stream with that time! But the true benefit of a self-driving revolution will be in lives saved. And new data
from Google’s2 autonomous vehicle company Waymo suggests that those savings could be very great indeed.
In a peer-reviewed study that is set to be published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention, Waymo analyzed the safety performance of
its autonomous vehicles over the course of 56.7 million miles driven in Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco — all
without a human safety driver present to take the wheel in an emergency. They then compared that data to human-only driving safety
over the same number of miles driven on the same kind of roads.
The results of the study, almost certainly the biggest and most comprehensive research on self-driving car safety yet released, are
striking.
A master class in driving safety
Compared to human drivers, the Waymo self-driving cars had:
• 81 percent fewer airbag-deploying crashes
• 85 percent fewer crashes with suspected serious or worse injuries
• 96 percent fewer injury crashes at intersections (primarily because Waymo detects other cars running red lights faster than
humans)
• 92 percent fewer crashes that involve injuries to pedestrians.
But the numbers really get eye-popping when you extend this data across all 3.3 trillion vehicle miles driven by humans in the US in a
typical year. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that if the same 85 percent reduction seen in serious crashes held true for fatal
ones — a big if, to be clear, since the study had too few fatal events to measure — we’d save approximately 34,000 lives a year.
Don’t get in the way of progress
2 While Google is the parent company behind Waymo, Waymo’s ownership is technically Google’s separately-run subsidiary, Alphabet, Inc.
Of course, there are plenty of considerations to the Waymo study and even more obstacles before we could ever achieve anything like
what’s outlined above.
In part because serious injury crashes are (thankfully) very rare, even 56.7 million miles isn’t long enough for researchers to be really
sure that such crashes would occur significantly less often with robot drivers, so more data will be needed there. Waymo’s cars were
also being driven largely in warm, sunny locations, operating in geofenced areas that had been heavily mapped by the company. It’s
far less certain how they might do in, let’s say, the snowy streets of Boston in the winter, or on the country roads of California.
This is also a company-run study, though it has been peer-reviewed by outside experts. And even if we decided to go all in on AI
drivers, actually producing enough autonomous vehicles to begin to replace human-driven cars and trucks would be an enormous
undertaking, to say the least.
Still, the data looks so good, and the death toll on our roads is so high that I’d argue slowing down autonomous vehicles is actually
costing lives. And there’s a risk that’s precisely what will happen.
Too often the public focuses on unusual, outlier events with self-driving cars, while the carnage that occurs thanks to human drivers on
a daily basis is simply treated as background noise. (That’s an example of two common psychological biases: availability bias, which
causes us to judge risk by outlier events that jump easily to mind, and base-rate neglect, where we ignore the underlying frequency of
events.) This misapprehension is something I often see in news coverage and consumption, and it’s one of the reasons I started Good
News.
The result is that public opinion has been turning against self-driving cars in recent years, to the point where vandals have attacked
autonomous vehicles on the street. And of course, given that nearly 5 million Americans make their living primarily through driving,
any wide-scale movement to self-driving vehicles would bring significant economic disruption.
But still, 34,000 lives saved on an annual basis would represent tremendous progress. Maybe, after about 100 years of humans trying
to drive, it’s time to give something else a chance behind the wheel.
Source D: “As Self-Driving Cars Near, Fear Heightens” (Statista reporting on AAA, January 2024).
This source is a chart graphing the results of a survey conducting by the American Automobile Association in 2024.
PART 1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1) A) Place a checkmark under the source(s) you would use to support the following paragraph: “While self-driving car technology
seems beneficial, the reality of implementing it safely would be very difficult. For one thing, driverless cars have only been tested
in favorable conditions which do not affect the real world. For another, each company implements the technology differently,
which means not all cars are built to the same standard of safety. Additionally, many people express anxiety about the prospect of
self-driving cars growing in number. Finally, fewer people would buy cars, which could result in a loss of jobs across the
automotive industry.”
Source A Source B Source C Source D
B) Give an example of ONE quote you would use from ONE of the sources you checked off to support the above paragraph:
2) Below are 3 potential “cons” to consider when weighing the risks of self-driving car technology. Choose ONE of these and develop
a counterclaim that proves how that problem can be solved or eliminated, with evidence from at least ONE source to support your
counterclaim.
A. We don’t know how safe driverless cars are really going to be on a wide scale.
B. There have been sad cases of serious injury and fatality involving self-driving car technology.
C. Public opinion has been turning against self-driving cars over the last several years.
I am addressing claim ___. My counterclaim is:
My evidence to support my counterclaim is from source ___. The quote is:
Part 2: Argumentative Performance Task
You will now review your sources, take notes, and plan, draft, revise, and edit your essay. You may use your notes and refer to the
sources. Now read your assignment and the information about how your argumentative essay will be scored; then begin your work.
Your assignment:
You have been assigned to write a persuasive research paper which takes a position on the risk of an emerging technology. You do
some research and decide to write about self-driving cars. Now that you have read the sources, compose an essay that argues a
position on the extent, if any, to which self-driving car technology is beneficial to humans.
Argumentative Scoring
Your argumentative essay will be scored using the following:
- Organization/purpose: How well did you state your claim, address opposing claims, and maintain your claim with a logical
progression of ideas from beginning to end? How well did your ideas thoughtfully flow from beginning to end using effective
transitions? How effective were your introduction and your conclusion?
- Elaboration/evidence: How well did you integrate relevant and specific information from the sources? How well did you
elaborate your ideas? How well did you clearly state ideas in your own words using precise language that is appropriate for
your audience and purpose? How well did you reference the sources you used by title or number?
- Convention: How well did you follow the rules of grammar usage, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling?
Now begin work on your argumentative essay. Manage your time carefully so that you can:
- plan your multi-paragraph essay
- write your multi-paragraph essay
- revise and edit the final draft of your multi-paragraph essay
Remember to check your notes and your prewriting/planning as you write and then revise and edit your letter.