Some people say driverless cars can be hacked to make them drive dangerously. They say that driverless cars though eliminate driver errors, they would not make road safer, and the software needs to be updated. A GPS can be jammed, laser range finders do not work in smoke, maps being hacked and manipulated, cameras might not work properly. They also say software systems collide and computers doesn’t know everything, it’s entirely the human knowledge. (Koopman par.7)
Confidence to the point of arrogance is practically a degree requirement for computer scientists. These scientists only have questions like, how do intelligent safety features actually work, and about the data on efficiency. NHTSA (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) does some simple tests and throws report about the uncertainty of autonomous vehicles.
In one of their reports they found a sample, interviewing a twenty-year-old female said, after she praised the ability of the car to self-correct when she drifted from her lane, she noted that she would love to have this feature in her own car. Then, after a night of drinking in the city, she would not have to sleep at a friend’s house before returning to her rural home. (Wagenseil par. 3)
A renowned Australian hacker known as Zoz summing up the situation showed off a slew of examples of unmanned vehicles malfunctioning in frightening ways:
Driverless cars flying off roadways and catching on fire. Driverless vans driving straight over Jersey barriers. Driverless SUVs plowing into buses full of blind orphans. Okay, that last one didn’t happen — but give it time. Such carnage is inevitable with these four-wheeled terminators. (“Driverless Cars Will Not Solve the Problem of Road Rage” par. 14)
But, Driverless cars are tested by many companies.
The first of these cars are being tested by Google. For as long as driverless and traditional cars share the road, there will still be rage. However, injuries are bound to go down when there is only a computer to blame (Scott par.2).
When two driverless cars are involved in an accident there is no road rage, because there isn’t any person to blame and get angry at. As it is just the software, only the manufacture of the car holds the complete responsibility for defective software. And also, it will record the incident happened during accident so that the manufacturers know where and who’s exactly the fault is. In a long run when a driverless car meets with an accident with a real driver car, then the car driver might not know whom to show his anger on and could eventually, reduce his anger as it is again only the manufactures software defect and no real person to blame and get into fight. Thus, at least road rage could be eliminated by using the driver-less cars, who cannot get into fight and attack anyone, instead record the incident happened. And also, the driverless cars might be programmed to fight back when they are attacked, which could eliminate road rage (Scott par.4).
Citation:
Driverless Cars Will Not Solve the Problem of Road Rage. (2014). In A. Francis (Ed.), At Issue. Road Rage. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press. (Reprinted from Driverless Cars? More Like Four-Wheeled-Terminators, Digital Trends, 2013) Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010911217/OVIC?u=sunybuff_main&sid=OVIC&xid=72523b33
Koopman, C. (2018). New Regulations Will Hinder Growth of the Ridesharing Industry. In Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale. (Reprinted from Today’s Solutions, Tomorrow’s Problems, Cato Institute, 2015, February 17) Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/BTUBIP519755437/OVIC?u=sunybuff_main&sid=OVIC&xid=6f3e306d
Scott, G. G. (2014). Driverless Cars Could Eliminate Road Rage. In A. Francis (Ed.), At Issue. Road Rage. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press. (Reprinted from The Driverless Car — and the End of Road Rage?, Huffington Post, 2012) Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010911216/OVIC?u=sunybuff_main&sid=OVIC&xid=0309f02c
Wagenseil, P. (2018). Self-Driving Cars Are Not As Safe As Vehicles Operated by Human Drivers. In Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale. (Reprinted from Pull Over, Robot! Self-Driving Cars Should Be Off The Roads, Tom’s Guide, 2016, September 20) Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/ZLVJRK680638574/OVIC?u=sunybuff_main&sid=OVIC&xid=d9ec7b02
