Should Driverless Cars Be Mandatory?

Self-driving cars are being built and are being experimented with everyday. Google has been building driverless cars for a while now. Features the cars will have is a GPS receiver, laser range finder, windscreen, video camera, radars, and an 160km-range engine. Although the self-driving cars already have all these features, it still has glitches that are continuously being operated on to be improved. Driverless cars technology cannot be fully trusted. A driver should have the option of driving his or her own car or have a self-driving car. Driverless cars should not be mandatory because of the dangers of the cars’ evolving technology. Some people seem to think driverless cars will help traffic jams and be safer all-around vehicles. However,
that is not completely true. One benefit is that “the technology could reduce traffic congestion, since shorter gaps between cars means more cars per lane” (Jaffe). The driverless car in front of the others may detect a pedestrian in the road and make a quick turn to avoid it, all of the self-driving cars behind the leading driverless car will not have enough reaction time when the radar notices the pedestrian it will hit the pedestrian causing all of the following self-driving cars to crash into each other or go completely off course. While in some cases, driverless cars may benefit people that will not always be the case. Drivers are always in a rush to get to their destination within a certain time limit. According to Edd Gent’s article “Google Reveals Driverless Car Prototype,” the self-driving vehicles will have a top speed of twenty-five mile per hour. Twenty-five miles per hour will not satisfy people who are constantly rushing through their day. It would take longer having to travel slower in a self-driving car than traveling in a non-self-driving car. While drivers see where they’re headed, self-driving cars cannot always see what is ahead due to the fact that a self-driving vehicle “depends on a highly detailed, error-free map of roads and signals” in order to get where it needs to go (Hall). The GPS may send a driverless car down a one-way or into a construction zone. People can make the decision as to whether or not they should travel down the street or not while computers cannot make the decision. Many car accidents are caused by “human error,” according to the National Institute of Health (Hall). Accidents caused by human error can be prevented in some ways. An accident caused by a technological error may not be able to be prevented and could cause more damage because there are “no steering wheel, no brake and no accelerator pedals” (Gent). Another issue people would run into is insurance would not be able to cover the damage because both driverless vehicles would be at fault. While self-driving cars become more common, the need for gasoline will decrease.
According to Los Angeles Times, “gasoline may give way to hydrogen, batteries or both.” The transformation from gasoline to hydrogen or batteries could cause people to lose their jobs because there would not be a high demand for gasoline anymore. Going from gasoline to batteries could cause complications because batteries would constantly have to be charged or replaced. With batteries having to be charged, a person’s electricity bill would sky-rocket. Driverless cars will move at a much slower velocity than driver-operated cars. When self-driving cars do a lot of stop/start work “they will become a less workable environment” (gizmag). Starting and stopping constantly will slow down the travel of the driverless vehicle. Computers becoming such a key factor in driverless cars cannot be a good idea. The increased use of technology will cause complications in transportation and “will open the industry to new companies” (Los Angeles Times). There are already tons of hackers, adding more technology to a vehicle could cause vehicles to be hacked and people riding in the car will not have a clue until they arrive in a different location then what they thought. With the new technology, someone will always be able to know a persons
location. Driverless cars will bring more traffic because they will bring more cars to the road. Although a driverless car will save time taking off from an intersection, but its radar will not be able to detect every object around. A crash could result from the radar not detecting objects around it, the crash will lose time that was suppose to be “saved” by being in a driverless car. Driverless vehicles almost guarantee more damage than help. As of now, self-driving cars have too many glitches to be trusted.