Imagine a situation where all you need to do is
simply get into your car, lean back, with your hands off the steering wheel,
and your feet off the pedals, you relax and just choose a destination. Your
car, now in charge does the rest of the job of taking you to your destination
without your supervision or control. And you could actually use the time just
like commuters on public transport to do some work or maybe read a newspaper.
This was only possible in futuristic sci-fi films
like the 2004 I, Robot where
driverless cars were seen driving on highways, and many other older movies that
featured autonomous cars. Well that idea no longer lives in the movies as
driverless cars are fast becoming a reality. This is similar to some other
sci-fi or fantasy concepts which later became scientific reality. In the 1997 American
action thriller Face Off, we saw a
full face transplant taking place, but it was not until 2005 that the first
partial face transplant on a living human was carried out in France and the
first full face transplant was completed in Spain in 2010.
Autonomous cars known as driverless or self-driving
cars can fulfill the human transportation capabilities of traditional cars. The
cars use a combination of technologies, including radar sensors on the front,
video cameras aimed at the surrounding areas, various other sensors and
artificial-intelligence software that helps steer. At the moment, self-driving
cars look much like every other car already on the road, with a computer taking
the place of the human brain. It is hoped that self-driving cars will be able
to drive on public streets in the near future
There have been several programs
around the world on driverless cars. The idea had initially faced legal hurdles
but not anymore as politicians are now scrambling to make self-driving cars a
reality. Three U.S states have now passed laws permitting driverless cars.
California is the latest state to allow testing of self driving cars on the
roads, though only with a human passenger along as a safety measure, the other
two states being Nevada and Florida.
It is believed that the
introduction of autonomous cars could produce several benefits. In a world
where an estimated 1.2 million people die every year in road accidents due to
human error, autonomous cars could reduce the number of traffic accidents on
the road as self-driving cars will be safer than human-driven cars. This is due
to the autonomous system’s increased reliability and decreased reaction time compared
to human drivers.
There is also relief of vehicle
occupants from driving and navigation chores. Then there is the issue of the
occupant’s state. It could ferry around people who are unable to drive due to
certain disabilities such as the blind, people who are too young and some
others too old to drive. You won’t be needing driver’s license anymore. It
would not also matter if the occupants were intoxicated. Cars can park far away
where space is not scarce and return as needed to pick up passengers thereby
alleviating parking space scarcity.
Google seems to be the most visible company working
on these types of vehicles, but similar projects are under way at other
organizations, including Caltech. So far, the Google driverless cars have
racked up more than 300,000 driving miles, and 50,000 of those miles were
without any intervention from the human drivers.
Of course there has been lots of concern coming from
people about such cars. Many still believe that computers cannot be smart
enough to maneuver the car in cases of emergency say when a cyclist or a child
mistakenly runs into the road. Some also fear that the computer system can malfunction.
There is also the question of driver’s liability in
case of an accident. What if a driverless car has an accident on the way? Who
will be held responsible: the owner who by the way is not operating it or the
manufacturer?
At a time when unemployment rate is on the increase
globally, many fear that driverless cars will lead to the loss of a profession –
driving.
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