By Brady Harris | Photographer
Imagine a driver speeding down the highway, with a vlog camera on the dashboard, eating a full meal and driving a Tesla — while this image seems like a Saturday Night Live skit, it has become a scarily common YouTube trend.
Self-driving cars have captivated society for years, featured in everything from movies and TV to news and the internet. Recently, car manufacturers have been in a race to get their version of “self-driving” or “auto-pilot” onto the road for drivers to use. However, with each push to deliver a product year after year, this technology gets more dangerous by the day.
The confusion begins with the claims.
These advancements are unregulated and carry risks; as a result, research indicates self-driving cars are often misunderstood in their purpose. While many people see the term “self-driving” as a free-for-all, market leaders like Tesla are not being transparent about their technological weaknesses.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing automakers, said in a statement provided to CBS News that, “There is some confusion and misunderstanding about automated driving technology. At its core, this technology is meant to support a human driver operating behind the wheel. It requires the human driver to be attentive and engaged. Not some of the time — but all of the time.”
First, the term “self-driving” is often overemphasized in many automotive industry applications. Currently, there are no consumer-level cars on the road that genuinely feature driver-assisted technology. Each vehicle that boasts automation capabilities must be supervised.
Even engineers claim self-driving cars are far from operating on the technology we assume they possess.
SAE International is an association comprising thousands of engineers and related professionals in the STEM field. A Kelley Blue Book article said that “despite all the overpromising and excitement surrounding cars that drive themselves, which has stirred the public’s imagination for the last 15-plus years, we are only now passing the halfway point on SAE International’s spectrum of autonomy levels.”
The inherent problem with the current models in place is that the technology relies on the driver “supervising” what the car is doing, thereby shifting the risk away from the auto manufacturers in the event of an accident. Most consumers assume “self-driving” is all-encompassing, and manufacturers have failed to correct those assumptions.
Drivers place their entire faith in a system that is still in the early stages of development and expect it to work flawlessly in an environment where nothing can be predicted. This is not only dangerous, but it also creates a new breed of drivers for the future who are distracted, lack defensive driving skills and are unprepared to take control of their vehicles.
The thought of driving on the road with not only distracted and unskilled drivers, but also unregulated technology, is very frightening, and the issue does not seem to be improving as more automakers roll out their new technologies to the public.
Additionally, a concern is the lack of attention to the sheer number of accidents “self-driving” cars are currently getting into. According to the NHTSA, there have been 587 “self-driving” vehicle crashes this year, with a record number of 110 coming from May alone.
In any other vehicle, mandatory recalls are issued when an accident occurs due to a defect in a car’s technology or mechanical component. Yet, despite these recurring accidents, no action has been taken for years. It is long overdue for there to be regulation and oversight of this dangerous technology in the hands of inexperienced drivers and I believe there is no place on the road for “self-driving” cars for the foreseeable future.
