HOW WILL THE SELF DRIVING CARS BE SAFE?
Answers
Explanation:
From ushering in an era of decreased car ownership, to narrowing streets and eliminating parking lots, autonomous vehicles promise to dramatically reshape our cities.
But after an Uber-operated self-driving vehicle struck and killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was crossing the street with her bike in Tempe, Arizona on March 18, 2018, there are more questions than ever about the safety of this technology, especially as these vehicles are being tested more frequently on public streets.
Some argue the safety record for self-driving cars isn’t proven, and that it’s unclear whether or not enough testing miles have been driven in real-life conditions. Other safety advocates go further, and say that driverless cars are introducing a new problem to cities, when cities should instead be focusing on improving transit and encouraging walking and biking instead.
While the U.S. government has historically been confident in autonomous vehicles’ ability to end the epidemic of traffic deaths on our streets, there are plenty of concerns from opponents of self-driving cars that are making cities think twice before welcoming them to their streets.
Self-driving vehicles may be poised to deliver a future of safer, greener streets for all, but testing the vehicles on today’s streets is a concern. Farrells and WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff
Are autonomous vehicles safe?
In 2009, Google launched its self-driving project focusing on saving lives and serving people with disabilities. In a 2014 video, Google showed blind and elderly riders climbing into its custom-designed autonomous vehicles, part of the company’s plan to “improve road safety and help lots of people who can’t drive.”
Although there were several self-driving projects in the country at the time, many being developed by government agencies or university labs, Google’s project differentiated itself by being public-facing. The goal was not to build cars—although Google did build its own testing prototypes—but to create a self-driving service that would help regular people get around.
Google began testing its vehicles on public streets the very same year the project launched. With the reorganization of Google into its new parent company Alphabet, the self-driving program became its own entity, Waymo. Almost a decade later, Waymo remains the clear leader for safe self-driving miles on U.S. streets.
Now there are dozens of autonomous vehicle companies testing on U.S. streets. As of February 2018, Waymo had logged five million self-driven miles, making it the leader for self-driven miles on U.S. streets. Over the next few months, Waymo’s fleet began driving about 25,000 self-driven miles per day, or one million miles per month. In July 2018, Waymo hit another major milestone of eight million self-driven miles as its new electric Jaguar I-Paces vehicle hit the streets.
The next most experienced companies, Uber and GM Cruise, are still several million miles behind Waymo. That doesn’t include miles driven in the semi-autonomous modes that many cars now offer, like Tesla’s Autopilot, which are more driver-assistance systems than true self-driving vehicles.