Google’s driverless cars will be worth two trillion dollars a year or more in revenues, and would save million from reducing accidents, traffic time, energy and the road rage by ninety percent. Driverless cars will dramatically reduce human errors, the main cause of fatal accidents, instead people can spend their time in more productive way. The manufacturers will be responsible for accidents since the liability will depend on the driving skills of the car rather than on owner. So far, about 1500 people a year are seriously injured.
Implementing the technology would reduce congestion and increases safety. First, transferring from manned vehicles to unmanned vehicles would nearly quadruple the capacity of existing roads to move traffic. At 60 miles per hour, modern lanes can move no more than 2,200 vehicles/hour, whereas driverless lanes could move at least 8,000 vehicles per hour at the same speed, which eliminates the need to construct new highways in most of the urban areas for decades.
Second, since computer works much faster than human, it would eliminate the kind of congestion when one car in a lane briefly slows down (O’Toole par. 2). A highway lane capable of moving 2,200 vehicles per hour at sixty miles per hour might be capable of moving only 1,600 vehicles per hour at thirty miles per hour. If that highway lane is loaded with, say, 1,800 vehicles per hour and one car slows down to thirty, however briefly, traffic will remain at 30 miles per hour — or less — until flows fall below 1,600 vehicles per hour. This is the main reason, why people get stuck in congestion which has no significant cause (O’Toole par. 3).
Third, eliminating driver error would reduce major accidents, which not only saves lives, also reduce congestion for other people who get stuck due to that accident. Also, driverless cars would save energy by eliminating stop-and-go congestion. They also reach higher speeds with less fuel consumption.
Driverless cars manufacturers are building lightweight cars, which likely reduces accidents and also, more fuel efficient. I would say, while no system is perfect, an electronic system is much less prone to error than one relying on humans (O’Toole par. 4). In other words, he basically describes technology is less prone to damages and mistakes to humans.
Citation:
O’Toole, R. (2011). AI Smart Cars Will Transform Highway Safety and Congestion. In N. Berlatsky (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints. Artificial Intelligence. Detroit: Greenhaven Press. (Reprinted from Dude, Where’s My Driverless Car?, Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What To Do About It, pp. 189–202, 2009, Cato Institute) Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010771226/OVIC?u=sunybuff_main&sid=OVIC&xid=854fcbed
