Autonomous Cars: Reducing Road Accidents by 94% - Essay Sample

Introduction

In modern times, autonomous cars have been invented to reduce the number of deaths on road accidents caused by reckless drivers with risky behaviors. Based on data analysis, it is clear to say that 94 % of accidents that occur are caused by those types of drivers (Drury, Lucia, & Caruso, 2017). This has led to the invention of self-driving cars that greatly reduce the number of road crashes. These self-driving cars are termed to be more efficient to some point in the coming future. These types of cars are capable of operating without the human environment by adapting themselves to their kind of environments. The autonomous vehicles (AV) depend on how they are programmed. Developments in technology have enabled the production of autonomous self-driving cars. There is a debate on whether autonomous cars are considered utilitarian or not. This paper discusses how utilitarianism is used in the building and the driving of the self-driving cars, and whether they are considered utilitarian or not.

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Utilitarianism and Its Application in Building Autonomous Cars

To understand the use of utilitarianism in the building and driving of autonomous cars requires an understanding of what utilitarianism means. Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory on whatever is wrong or right. It is rooted in the moral laws and describes an action that has utility, and happy consequences to all people involved. Utilitarianism considers an action, right if it has many benefits to a larger number of people. Self-driving cars, referred to as autonomous vehicles (AV)or robot cars, are made with a technology that enables them to sense the remote environment and maneuver the path without requiring total input from a human being (Bonnefon, Shariff, & Rahwan, 2016). They are built with a combination of sensors that enables it to function perfectly in any climatic condition. The sensory information that can be used. The ethical rules that guide the society, are programmed to bring changes however some may cause accidents because the said program is not human controlled. The decision on ethical issues varies from one person to the other. In our current era, researchers have conducted several surveys on approximately 2000 people on which 76 percent of the partakers have expressed a better taste of preference on the self-driving cars compared to the non-autonomous cars (Scott, 2017). When a utilitarian approach is conducted the Av is likely to help minimize the number of casualties on crashes. During a road crash instead of killing ten pedestrians, it can maneuver and kill one pedestrian which is considered a better sacrifice. Partakers have found it more overwhelming to accept the government's directives of the self-driving cars. These vehicles reduce traffic congestion by having smooth traffic flow of all vehicles by controlling their speed. According to the research analysis carried out, it is said that most of the traffic congestion is caused by human drivers who certainly cause stop-and-go traffic. Under normal conditions, the autonomous car reduces the carbon (IV) oxide emissions this is different compared to the non-autonomous vehicles that are said to pollute the environment with exhaust fumes. The zero-emission cars are most likely to greatly favor a conducive environment without pollution. Researches have made it clear that autonomous cars could increase travel speed by more than twenty percent and increase the highway capacity by a hundred percent (Fournier, 2016). They also could support higher vehicle throughput rates on the roads. The autonomous vehicles travel safer at high speeds, this is because they can monitor the surrounding traffic with reduced space that is responded with fine-tuned brakes and acceleration. They also could increase lane capacity of up to five hundred percent. Their fuel consumption is low as compared to the non-autonomous vehicles. They have improved fuel consumption by ten percent through accelerating and decelerating smoothly than a human driver. They enable lower peak speeds but higher effective speed, thereby reducing the frequency of crashing. The autonomous cars could help solve the problem of the first and last mile service that supplement public transport and larger cities suffer the same problem. The people with disabilities who generally cannot currently drive even with the vehicle modifications might be guaranteed access to the open road and to independence which is easier with the autonomous cars. The cost and time during traveling are to be reduced recovering the hours lost to commuting and congestion. Taxis will be more affordable since the cost will reduce to $0.5 per mile in a driverless car and the waiting time of the cab will be 36 seconds from 5 minutes that was earlier on. There will be more efficient parking since the autonomous car will be dropped a location to where they will park away from their destinations. Currently, enough space is considered during parking since the drivers of the cars need to exit after parking and enter when removing the car from the parking lot.

Why Autonomous Cars Are Not Considered Autonomous

The autonomous is not considered autonomous despite the claims because of its many drawbacks. There are certain drawbacks that the autonomous cars have, they include; a being company may make a step by updating the programming that runs the cars and this could lead to car accidents. The licensing infrastructure is a challenge since they keep the drivers safe and need to make sure that the autonomous cars perform as they are advertised, because by doing that they prevent the public from risk and provide guaranteed safety (Faulhaber.etal,2019). There will be a loss of privacy although the companies test self -driving cars to claim all pros and no cons using self-driving cars. This means that a third party will have the opportunity to track individuals' movements. Since the autonomous car has data centers that are in the potential of getting hacked and accessible to individuals or organizations. The pollution will also be greater although the companies are looking at self-driven cars that are fuel-efficient but when the public access it. They may be looking for more pollution out of autonomous cars. They are said to be slow, conservative and timid on the road but they can also be annoying and negative to human drivers'.They will also trigger debates about legal, ethical and financial responsibility, for example when the car crashes without a driver, whose fault it will be: the owner of the vehicle or the software engineer.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the autonomous car is difficult in operating in adverse weather conditions such as heavy rains and snow, heavy rains affect with roof-mounted laser sensors while the snow affects the cameras. They also are challenged by reading road signs because they are programmed and the GPS that provides them with information may not have registered some obstacles that are on the road like potholes, newly posted road signs and road conditions that have been recently changed. The traffic road signs are likely to be tampered with in developing a road system and infrastructure for autonomous vehicles. The autonomous vehicle would be used efficiently by terrorists to fasten their terrorist programs such as loading explosives and moving bombs that would be great relief news to the terrorists. Human activities carried out on the road such as jaywalkers and hand signals make it so difficult for the self -driven cars to understand, at times drivers communicate with one another but the autonomous car without a driver might fail. Police will not be able to interact with the driverless vehicles in case of a certain accident of break of law.

References

Bonnefon, J. F., Shariff, A., & Rahwan, I. (2016). The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles. Science, 352(6293), 1573-1576. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6293/1573.short

Faulhaber, A. K., Dittmer, A., Blind, F., Wachter, M. A., Timm, S., Sutfeld, L. R., ... & Konig, P. (2019). Human decisions in moral dilemmas are largely described by utilitarianism: Virtual car driving study provides guidelines for autonomous driving vehicles. Science and engineering ethics, 25(2), 399-418. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-018-0020-x

Fournier, T. (2016). Will my next car be a libertarian or a utilitarian?: Who will decide?. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 35(2), 40-45. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7484885/

Scott, M. (2017). The Future of European Transit: Driverless and Utilitarian. New York Times, May, 28. https://www.carloratti.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20170527_NYT.pdf

Drury, M., Lucia, J., & Caruso, V. (2017). Autonomous Vehicles: An Ethical Theory to Guide Their Future. https://preserve.lehigh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=cas-lehighreview-vol-25