Should federal regulators quickly change the rules so that self-driving cars can become common place on the nation’s roads? In recent years, multiple businesses and the United States government have invested in the research, development, and testing of self-driving vehicles. While these vehicles offer many national economic and safety benefits, many are concerned about the safety and legal problems that come with the hurried legalization of driverless cars. Should federal regulators quickly change the rules so that self-driving cars can become common place on the nation’s roads?
Pro: Change the Driving Laws Because of the many benefits of self-driving cars to the safety and economy of the American people, federal laws should quickly adapt …show more content…
Because driverless cars share information about their location with other cars, they can better organize traffic to speed up congestion. This behavior also reduces accidents, which, again, lowers the amount of time spent in traffic. The reliable use of autonomous taxi services could reduce the number of cars necessary in cities (Disruptions: How Driverless Cars Could Reshape Cities). Reduced traffic time saves money from being spent on gas and car repairs, and Jeff Zients, the director of the National Economic Council, believes that driverless vehicles will “make a significant dent in the $160 billion worth of time and gas that Americans lose stuck in traffic every year, and the hundreds of hours each American spends each year driving” (NPR). For the benefits of self-driving cars to be implemented, we need to encourage their development by quickly changing the federal driving codes to allow them to be freely developed. Brad Templeton, a consultant and publisher of Robocars.com, stated that “Big companies love certainty and targets that they need to aim for”. Although the government is investing in self-driving technology, as with most other technical developments, businesses and entrepreneurs are going to be at the forefront of development. The New York Times points out that Ford, Google, Uber, and Lyft have all already begun testing driverless …show more content…
Fatal accidents have already occurred in places where Google, Tesla, and other manufacturers of driverless cars have tested the new technology. For example, Tesla admitted its guilt in the death of Joshua Brown in May of 2016. The fatality was caused by the autopilot system in the car not sensing an eighteen-wheeler in front of the car and thus not applying the brakes, causing the car to crash into the back of the tractor trailer at sixty-five miles per hour (NYT). Multiple more deaths are reported across the world which can be directly traced back to mistakes made by driverless cars. Driverless vehicles are incredibly vulnerable to malicious hackers (Business Mirror). While the designers are, of course, trying to establish hefty safety precautions, the fact remains that self-driving cars communicate with each other through wireless signals, and this provides an opportunity for hackers to get into the car’s system. Once there, hackers would have access a great deal of information about the car and its
Pro: Change the Driving Laws Because of the many benefits of self-driving cars to the safety and economy of the American people, federal laws should quickly adapt …show more content…
Because driverless cars share information about their location with other cars, they can better organize traffic to speed up congestion. This behavior also reduces accidents, which, again, lowers the amount of time spent in traffic. The reliable use of autonomous taxi services could reduce the number of cars necessary in cities (Disruptions: How Driverless Cars Could Reshape Cities). Reduced traffic time saves money from being spent on gas and car repairs, and Jeff Zients, the director of the National Economic Council, believes that driverless vehicles will “make a significant dent in the $160 billion worth of time and gas that Americans lose stuck in traffic every year, and the hundreds of hours each American spends each year driving” (NPR). For the benefits of self-driving cars to be implemented, we need to encourage their development by quickly changing the federal driving codes to allow them to be freely developed. Brad Templeton, a consultant and publisher of Robocars.com, stated that “Big companies love certainty and targets that they need to aim for”. Although the government is investing in self-driving technology, as with most other technical developments, businesses and entrepreneurs are going to be at the forefront of development. The New York Times points out that Ford, Google, Uber, and Lyft have all already begun testing driverless …show more content…
Fatal accidents have already occurred in places where Google, Tesla, and other manufacturers of driverless cars have tested the new technology. For example, Tesla admitted its guilt in the death of Joshua Brown in May of 2016. The fatality was caused by the autopilot system in the car not sensing an eighteen-wheeler in front of the car and thus not applying the brakes, causing the car to crash into the back of the tractor trailer at sixty-five miles per hour (NYT). Multiple more deaths are reported across the world which can be directly traced back to mistakes made by driverless cars. Driverless vehicles are incredibly vulnerable to malicious hackers (Business Mirror). While the designers are, of course, trying to establish hefty safety precautions, the fact remains that self-driving cars communicate with each other through wireless signals, and this provides an opportunity for hackers to get into the car’s system. Once there, hackers would have access a great deal of information about the car and its