Is the world ready to accept autonomous vehicles?
Change is a foregone conclusion within our society. Whether you want change to happen or not, it’s going to happen. When it comes to the automotive sector, change is coming in the way of self-driving vehicles. Are you ready for them? You know what I mean, the autonomous vehicles which have been tested for a number of months in various locations. Another question I have – is the world ready for autonomous vehicles?
If you’ve been up-to-date with the news, you’ve most likely heard testing has been happening in North America and Europe for autonomous vehicles. This testing hasn’t all been positive. In other words, you’re not going to see many self-driving vehicles on the roads any time soon. Is this a good thing or bad thing?
Statistics show most collisions are caused by human error (over 80% actually, depending on the jurisdictions). It’s been predicted that autonomous vehicles can reduce this alarming statistic. There are numerous sensors on the vehicle which alert the onboard computers of danger to allow responses within milliseconds. Some of these technologies are already equipped in our current vehicles. For example, many of our newer vehicles already have sensors/cameras that have blind spot monitoring systems, emergency automatic braking systems, automatic parallel parking and lane departure warning, just to name a few. This doesn’t even mention anti-lock brakes, Electronic Stability Control and back-up cameras which are already common in many vehicles and have been for a few years.
With all of these technologies already placed in our vehicles, why wouldn’t the thought of 
have a self-driving vehicle with more updated computers to help protect us while riding in the vehicle? I think the answer to that question is ownership. I don’t mean whether we want to own a vehicle like this. I’m referring to wanting to take ownership of our own actions, to be in charge. There are many drivers on our roads who wish to be the driver, not the passenger. They want to make decisions. Would they be the ones who eventually purchase the autonomous vehicle? If not, then who?
To those who would invest in the autonomous vehicle, perhaps it would be the person who never learned to drive. Maybe it’s those who, for one form of medical reason, can no longer drive a vehicle on their own. Perhaps it will be someone who just doesn’t want to drive any longer. But for people like those, why not take a taxi or Uber or other forms of transportation? Wouldn’t that be less expensive on a yearly basis? How would insurance work with autonomous vehicles? If there was a collision, would there be a party that would be charged? All questions that need to be asked before we see these vehicles as common place on our roads.
I believe there will be those who feel that once their current vehicle becomes too costly to operate would consider purchasing an autonomous vehicle in due time. However, with vehicles becoming better built and lasting longer, when with that actually happen?
There are a lot of factors involved to have autonomous vehicles ready for the road. Some of the important factors are money and an updated infrastructure. And don’t think the autonomous vehicles will cost less than the current modern vehicles. Is your community ready for this update in infrastructure? Are your tax dollars ready to be spent in this manner? Time will tell I guess. Will the billions of dollars spent with testing the autonomous vehicle be worth it in the long run?
I have a lot more questions and thoughts pertaining to our future on our roads. You should as well. But I’ll save my questions for another time. I like to think that I’m sitting back with my popcorn, ready to see how this show turns out.