Driverless cars are the wave of the future-a future that will be here before we know it. They will profoundly change our society.
Honestly, this is a good thing. While most driver’s are conscientious much of the time, we are all human beings.
Between all of the texting, talking on the cell phone, putting on makeup, reading or that moment of inattention while we are in charge of a heavy, speeding missile, a driverless car will be a positive.
It’s all of that individuality in driving that causes many issues. There is the person that drives fast, then slow, than fast again, seemingly forgetting about cruise control and “driving” everyone around them nuts. There are those that are drunk. There are those that think tailgating, speeding, passing-on-a-dime, and other such tactics will get them to their destination sooner when actually all the cars they passed catch up with them at the stop light.
Wrecks cause stoppages, so fewer accidents would mean less congestion. Computer controllers would keep all vehicles moving at the same speed most of the time, reducing that one vehicle that everyone wants to pass because of its slow speed.
Yes, there is a potential for problems. Just as some of our airplane pilots and high speed train engineers overuse the technology, the same thing would happen in our cars. It would also result in the younger generations neither knowing how to drive nor what to do in emergency situations.
But overall, the technology would be an improvement and is already in use at Heathrow Airport in London, which has been using them to take people from the terminal to the car park since 2011.
Currently, Google is working on an autonomous car project.
Barriers still remain and the biggest could be us and our reluctance to adopt.
However, trying to stop this technology from coming would be like attempting to stop a Kansas tornado.
Undoubtedly, an autonomous car is something we will see in our lifetimes.