The Self-Driving Advantage

The Self-Driving Advantage

 “The Self-Driving Advantage”
Imagine yourself enjoying your daily morning commute to school, listening to national public radio on low volume while turning left off of Harvey Road. Suddenly, you find yourself scrambled up behind your second row seats. Incidents like these result in the millions of accidents that occur in the United States per year. The culprit? Human driver error. In order to further facilitate economic growth and safety throughout ground transport infrastructures, consumers and manufacturers need to embrace constantly emerging technologies that aim to eliminate driver error and gain grounds at improving safety in numbers.

Every year, numerous improvements in vehicle crash ratings and electronic safety features find an increasing presence in automobiles. With every new car model, automotive manufacturers develop ways to make driving safer. The continuous evolution of these technologies and consumer safety market preference corresponds with a noted gradual downward trend in American motor vehicle fatalities- in 1967, 50,724 citizens died from traffic accidents. In 2012 however, only 32,367 fatalities occurred (“Critical Reasons for Crashes Investigated in the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey”). An increasing number of consumers keep this in mind when purchasing vehicles, deciding whether or not radar-adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping, or emergency braking features are necessary additions to consider with their purchase (iihs.org.) Limited in operation, however, current driver assistance systems are limited in function and operate only in permitting environmental conditions. These technologies leave still leave responsibility to the driver- they do not completely intervene vehicle operation to operate for sustained periods of time. Ultimately, the driver’s judgment determines the path a vehicle will take and the fate of its occupants. With the continuous evolution of car safety features and the still-present issue of car...

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