Driverless Cars Research Paper

35,000. This is the number of deaths caused by car accidents each year; 35,000 deaths that could be prevented with driverless cars. Cars were first made in 1886 and since then, they have been the most used transportation method in the world (“Mode of transport”). Quietly, since the 1920s, driverless cars have been developed and recently, they have emerged as the possible replacement for manually driven cars. Driverless cars use a computer to control the car’s actions, which gets its information from multiple cameras and sensors equipped on the roof, front, and sides of the car (“How Does a Self-Driving Car Work?”). Driverless cars should take over manually driven cars as they will lessen the number of car accidents, and consequently save lives, …show more content…
Firstly, removing manually driven cars and replacing them with driverless cars will prevent car accidents and therefore prevent thousands of American deaths. There are 5.5 million car crashes in the US, annually, causing 96 deaths per day or 35,000 deaths per year and 94% of those accidents, or 32,900 deaths, are caused by human error (Johnson). Those deaths could be prevented with the implication of driverless cars. Compared this to Google’s driverless cars which have driven 1.8 million miles, or the number of miles driven by an average person in over 150 years, have been involved in only 13, all of which were caused by the other driver (Johnson). Driverless cars use sensors, cameras, and a GPS, mounted on various points like the front bumper, roof, and trunk to graphically map the car’s surroundings. The central computer which receives all of this information is solely set on the passenger's safety and following all formal and informal traffic rules, not getting distracted by the scenery, …show more content…
An average lifespan is about 78 years in America, meaning that an average American lives for about 690,000 hours, but they only spend about ⅔ of that time awake, or about 460,000 hours. An average American spends .8% of these waking hours, or 38,000 hours in a transportation vehicle(“7 Time-Consuming Things an Average Joe Spends on in a Lifetime”). By transporting through a driverless car could save you 4½ years worth of time back to its passengers. Most American adults sleep an hour or less of the 7-9 hours recommended by doctors. By using this time to sleep, a person can be positively affected, they could feel more energized, fight off sickness more quickly, etc (“Sleep Needs”). Also, most Americans suffer from some degree of stress (“Stressed in America”). The passengers could use the time in the driverless car to, once again, sleep, meditate, or plainly relax and reflect, which could help a person relieve stress (“40 Ways to Relax in 5 Minutes or Less.”). Having driverless cars as the most common mode of transportation will provide more free time for the would-be driver, and therefore having a positive influence on their