Over the past few years, one of the
biggest technological advances were focused on cars and driver safety. Many of
the new models put out by automobile manufactures, have many new built in
safety features such as lane departure warning, back up cameras and automatic
braking for a few examples. While these features were created to help reduce
accident rates, they could actually be making driving more dangerous. Speaker Gail Baura, Phd, discussed in her
lecture that while these technological advances in automobiles have created a
safer environment when on the road, the technology still has defects when faced
with human drivers. Drivers have reported ignoring these safety features, due
to past false alarms. In self-driving cars, while they can anticipate changes
in the road, these systems are impacted by the unknowns of human drivers that
they share the road with.
In a 2011 article from Wired about how safety features and effects on
driving, recognized and warned of the new dangers that drivers would face on
the road, even at the forefront of technological improvement of cars. While car
manufacturers have created safety systems that help to alert drivers to danger,
it is feared that they have put drivers in more danger by causing a decrease in
attention needed to drive. In many cases, you can say that these features which
are meant to decrease reaction time to dangers in the road, have raised the
reaction time by implying to the driver that they do not need to pay as much attention
to the road, because the car will do that for them. There has been in increase
in accidents due to multitasking during, such as texting, calling, eating and
applying makeup. The new safety features can only do so much in preventing
accidents, and they need to be helped by the attentiveness of a human driver.
Accidents over the recent years,
have shown how the technology was working correctly, but it was the
carelessness of a human driver that created the danger. A man in Florida, was
killed while using his self-driving Tesla and ignoring the warning features to
take back the wheel. It is unknown, what the driver was doing at the time of
the crash that took his attention away from the road. After deploying the
warning systems, the car was unable to self-brake in response to a truck that crossed
its path, ultimately killing the driver. A crash in Phoenix Arizonian between a
Honda CRV and self-driving Uber, was caused by the carelessness of the Honda’s
human driver. The driver made a left turn across an intersection, without
confirming that there was no oncoming traffic. The Honda and the Uber collided
in the intersection, after the driver did not see the car and the Uber was not
able to respond to the car entering its path.
While in each example of the accidents that have occurred with
self-driving cars, the technology could have responded better, but both could
have been avoided if the human drivers were more diligent. While technology has
begun to make the world hands-free, do we want to put our lives in the hands of
technology on the road? If drivers paid more attention to the road and were
more diligent about making decisions, many accidents can be prevented without
the help of technology.
Works
Cited
Baura, G. (2017, December 5). Continuous
Drowsiness Monitoring of Drivers. Lecture presented at Neuroscience Seminar
in Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Barry, K. (2017, June 03). Too Much
Safety Could Make Drivers Less Safe. Retrieved December 13, 2017, from
https://www.wired.com/2011/07/active-safety-systems-could-create-passive-drivers/
Bomey, N. (2017, June 20). Driver
killed in Tesla self-driving car crash ignored warnings, NTSB reports.
Retrieved December 13, 2017, from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/06/20/tesla-self-driving-car-crash/411516001/
Randazzo, R. (2017, March 30).
Here's what happened in Uber's self-driving car crash. Retrieved December 13,
2017, from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/03/30/self-driving-uber-crash-police-report/99814322/
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