Driverless Cars | Teen Ink

Driverless Cars

May 26, 2016
By Braedon BRONZE, Columbus, Montana
Braedon BRONZE, Columbus, Montana
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

BMW, Audi, and Google are all making different versions on their driverless cars. Driverless car should be coming to the market around 2020, it’s going to take a while because they still have to improve a lot of stuff about them. Driverless cars should be allowed because they decrease the number of crashes. For instance, thirty thousand people a year are killed and over two million people are injured every year by car crashes according to Nidhi Kalra from the New York Times. Driverless cars are being developed to follow all rules of the road. Another thing about driverless cars is they have a thing called car-to-car communication so they can detect cars before getting into an accident. If we get driverless cars advanced enough to where they follow all laws of the road, drive through all road conditions, and drive through all different types of terrain, they will reduce crash numbers by nearly eighty or ninety percent according to the McCatchy-Tribune.

 

In article one it says “car accidents caused more than ninety nine percent of those car accidents.” I think that it would be very smart if we got driverless cars, it would help decrease the number of car accidents. Richard Wallace said, “there’s dramatic potential to reduce crashes by eighty to ninety percent, even more.” It is important for driverless cars to reduce car accidents because families are hurt every year by fatal car accidents.


Ellen Hall said that “self-driving cars also have another advantage over human drivers; they don’t get tired, distracted, or angry.” I think this is a very good point because when people are taking road trips they could easily get really tired and fall asleep behind the wheel. Another thing is people on the road often get road rage making them angry which causes them to do stupid stuff. People also get distracted very easily, these are all reason that driverless cars will be more effective and safe than normal people behind the wheel.


One big problem with driverless cars is how do you program them to follow all road laws? Ellen Hall said that “self-driving cars still have issues obeying road signs and handling poor weather conditions.” How would the car be able to tell when to stop for a stop sign? How does it know when a stop sign is coming up? Ellen also said “as pedestrians get used to technology will they stop in front of oncoming traffic?” How can we be confident in these cars to stop for someone walking out into traffic? We can’t be confident in these cars until they are tested in real situations.


I think that driverless cars should come to the road, but I think they need to be tested in real situations first. They need to be taken to rural roads, winding roads, highways, and big cities to see how well they perform. If they can’t perform well in all those areas then they shouldn’t be allowed on the road. I also think that we can improve any of the areas that the cars aren’t good at to make them able to drive the roads safely and successfully.


The author's comments:

I was inspired to write this because i think driverless cars would be affective and work well for people who can afford them.


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