Self Driving Cars: Are They Safe?

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Self driving cars are the future of transportation, no doubt about it; current car companies are jumping into the pool of self driving vehicles every day, and new companies focused solely on the self driving aspects of driving are multiplied every quarter. The way we move around is changing right in front of us, with some companies putting fully autonomous cars into consumers garages right now. Countless self driving startups have produced flashy concept cars for us to dream about driving, but companies like Tesla, Uber, and Google have cars currently on the road that can fully drive themselves.

 Self driving cars scare some people because they give too much control to the car and not the driver. The technology being used in these cars is new, and it’s a real question whether or not we should be putting our lives solely in the hands of our cars and the companies that make them. In June 2016, Ohio technology enthusiast Joshua Brown was killed driving a Tesla Model S in an accident that may have been caused by Tesla’s self driving and accident avoidance technology. This marked the first death involving a self driving car, and it raised many questions as to what precautions we, as consumers, are taking to ensure the safety of our vehicles.

 The counter argument that self driving technology makes driving safer is supported by an incident that occurred in December 2016, where a man driving a Tesla Model S equipped with accident prevention technology was saved by the car’s emergency braking when two cars collided in front of it. The preventative braking that the vehicle made was a brake that a driver could not have made due to a human’s response time compared to the radar system’s response time.

The pros and cons of self driving cars are still being debated by consumers and manufacturers alike. And it’s up to us to set a precedent of safety in the self driving car business as consumers of the products.