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William Fridy

Professor Nadine Gordon

UWRT 1103 - 04

4/28/19

How Self-Driving Cars Impact Society

A topic that interests me is self-driving cars. While assisted-driver technology has been

around for several years, completely autonomous cars are starting to appear. Most car companies

are starting to develop and test cars that do not require a person controlling them. Companies

such as Tesla, Audi, Google, and BMW are developing and testing driverless cars that can one

day be sold to the public. The main reason I have chosen this topic is to explore the benefits and

impact of driverless cars on society. Autonomous cars will impact society in many ways,

including decreasing traffic, decreasing the number of accidents related to human error per year,

improving the environment, increasing the likelihood of obesity, and how the sale of autonomous

cars could change the US.

Before discussing how autonomous cars will impact society, it is important that one have

a basic understanding of how driverless cars work. To put it simply, the car has a series of

sensors and cameras that are used to detect where road lines are, and for sensing where objects

such as barriers, cars, and pedestrians are, autonomous cars use a special form of radar (Gupton).

After sensing and interpreting all necessary information, the car then decides what speed to go,

what lane to travel in, and is always prepared to stop when something runs in front of it with very

little reaction time. Currently, fully autonomous cars are not legal in the United States, meaning
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even if fully autonomous technology has been created, it can not be implemented into cars

available to the public until a law is passed, allowing this (Are Self-Driving).

Self-driving cars have been in development for nearly 10 years. Over these past 10 years,

the multi-billion-dollar company Google has been developing their own autonomous car, named

Waymo. While developing Waymo, Google had Nevada’s Department of Motor Vehicles create

a “driving test” for it. The test involved Waymo navigating a construction zone, driving on the

highway, and stopping when something runs in front of it. The car succeeded in all categories

except for travelling through a construction zone (Harris). Google, after seeing how successful

Waymo was, decided that it was time for Waymo to drive around the state of California.

Waymo has been on the road for over 5 years, traveled over 10 million miles, and during this

time, has been in numerous accidents. However, every accident Waymo has been involved in,

none of the accidents were its fault (Burkitt). Seeing as how every accident was caused by a

human driver colliding with Waymo, the theory that autonomous cars are safer than conventional

cars seems to be reasonable. While having a car decide how to drive may seem like a bad

decision, it is in fact a better alternative to people driving cars. According to Susan Gupton,

around 94 percent of all vehicular accidents are caused by human error (Gupton). Considering

driverless cars remove the human factor from driving, the number of accidents would greatly

decrease if human choice and human error was taken out of the equation.

Another benefit of autonomous cars is that traffic and fuel consumption will decrease as

more autonomous vehicles are present on the road. Some researchers believe that at some point

in the near future, autonomous cars will be able reduce fuel consumption by up to 40 percent

simply by reducing traffic on highways and in cities (Leong). This is possible because, unlike

conventional cars, autonomous vehicles would be able to minimize stop-and-go traffic by

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reducing braking occurrences by 90 percent (Leong). These statistics were based off a study of a

handful of self-driving cars. Reducing fuel consumption by 40 percent and reducing braking by

90 percent on highways was based on if only five percent of all cars on the road were

autonomous. With having such a small percentage of cars on the road being autonomous,

imagine if 20 percent of all cars on roads in the United States. As car technology improves every

year, one can only imagine how efficient autonomous cars will be in five years.

With the efficiency and reduced fuel usage of autonomous cars comes the potential to

improve the environment. According to a study conducted by the University of Michigan, having

a large fleet of self-driving cars resulted in reduced greenhouse emissions of up to 9 percent

compared to conventional cars (Staff). This is important as countries around the world such as

China and France are trying to find ways to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Having self –

driving cars that are extremely fuel efficient can help contribute to the global agreement known

as the Paris Agreement, which has the goal to reduce emissions of all countries that agreed to

attempt to reduce overall emissions every year.

The production and selling of autonomous cars would not only boost the economy of the

United States, but of the entire world. With Google spending over 1.1 billion dollars on the

development of Waymo, companies working on the development of Waymo are growing and

flourishing (Daily). A company’s willingness to spend monumental amounts of money on a

constantly developing and changing product shows that companies are dedicated to creating a

product that is safe for people to use. Having a multi-billion-dollar company spend over one

billion dollars on the development on one car should increase the public’s desire to buy an

autonomous car one day because a large portion of their research and development for self –

driving cars goes towards safety improvements. The autonomous car industry is projected to be a
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major player in the United States. Once fully autonomous cars are readily available to the public,

analysts believe that autonomous vehicles will produce around 800 billion dollars annually for

the United States economy (Autonomous). Reducing accidents related to human error would

reduce injury-related medical bills by the millions, giving more people more money to spend.

This gargantuan number was decided upon by factoring in savings from better fuel efficiency,

reduced crashes, and easier access to transportation (Autonomous).

Autonomous vehicles have also shown the potential to help save lives. For example,

recently, a Tesla Model X drove a man who was having a heart attack to the hospital after the

man alerted the car to the situation at hand (Alton). This just shows how effective autonomous

cars could be at helping to save lives. In an average year, roughly 735 thousand people

experience a heart attack while driving a car (Alton). Having an autonomous car that can take

you to the hospital would drastically improve your chances of living after experiencing a life-

threatening health issue. If a person suffered from a heart attack or any other serious health issue

while at the wheel on a conventional car, they run the risk of potentially crashing their car or

suffering permanent damage to their health while waiting from an ambulance to take them to the

hospital.

At the moment, there are only a few downsides to autonomous cars. One of the

downsides of the self – driving car industry is the likelihood that this industry would slightly

increase unemployment in the United States anywhere from one tenth of a percent to half a

percent (Self-Driving). While this may not be a major loss of jobs, there is still the potential to

increase unemployment even more. Another downside of self – driving cars is that there could

be an increase in obesity in the United States as people choose to ride in a car instead of walking

or taking another form of transportation (Alton). Seeing as how obesity is already a major
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problem in the United States today, it will likely only get worse with the implementation of

completely autonomous vehicles.

While fully autonomous vehicles are currently illegal in the United States ,except for

special occasions such as Waymo, legalizing completely self-driving cars would not only

improve the United States economy, but the worlds’ economy. Considering American car

companies such as Tesla are pioneers in the autonomous car industry, having an American car

company sell cars overseas could help bring back the United States car industry and prevent the

car industry from needing to be bailed out again.

After thoroughly researching the topic, the positive aspects and impacts of self – driving

vehicles greatly outweigh the negative impacts. Having a car that is monumentally safer than a

conventional car while also being more efficient is a better argument for the implementation of

self – driving cars compared to the argument against self – driving cars that they make people

lazier. Autonomous cars will also help to boost the United States economy drastically, which

could help prevent another recession where the United States car industry struggles with

bankruptcy. The only major downside I could find related to autonomous cars was the likelihood

that people will become even more lazy in an already lazy society. It is thought that not having to

drive a car will lead to more people choosing to “drive” instead of walking (Alton). It is possible

that autonomous cars could indirectly lead to an increase of obesity and health issues related to

obesity.

In conclusion, driverless cars will positively impact society by boosting the economies of

the countries they are produced in, reducing traffic on highways and in cities, and by reducing

the number of accidents caused by human error. Because of an average autonomous car being

much more fuel efficient than a conventional car, they are also contributing towards the
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improvement of the environment by reducing the expulsion of greenhouse gases. An autonomous

cars ability to detect objects and motion 360 degrees around it makes it an immensely safer

alternative to a conventional car. Having an autonomous emergency response vehicle can help

save lives by reducing the time needed to respond to a call. Assuming that the United States

Federal Government passes a bill allowing completely driverless cars to travel across all roads in

the United States, combined with greatly improved software and technology, could lead to a

greatly improved society.

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Works Cited

Alton, Larry. “Driverless Cars Will Impact Healthcare for Better and Worse.” Health Works
Collective, 16 Feb. 2018, www.healthworkscollective.com/driverless-cars-will-impact-
healthcare-better-worse/.

“Are Self-Driving Cars Legal?” Hg.org, www.hg.org/legal-articles/are-self-driving-cars-legal-

31687.

"Autonomous Vehicles to Have Huge Impact on Economy, Tech Sector." Government

Technology State & Local Articles - E.Republic. Accessed March 21, 2019.

https://www.govtech.com/fs/automation/Autonomous-Vehicles-to-Have-Huge-Impact

on-Economy-Tech-Sector.

Burkitt, Bree. “Waymo Self-Driving Vehicle Involved in Arizona Crash.” USA Today, Gannett

Satellite Information Network, 17 June 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-

now/2018/06/17/waymo-self-driving-vehicle-arizona-crash/708809002/.

Daily, Mike, et al. "Self-Driving Cars." IEEE Explore. Accessed March 21, 2019.

https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.librarylink.uncc.edu/document/8220479.

Gupton, Nancy. “The Science of Self-Driving Cars.” The Franklin Institute, 10 Aug. 2016,

www.fi.edu/science-of-selfdriving-cars.

Harris, Mark. “How Google's Autonomous Car Passed the First U.S. State Self-Driving

Test.” IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News, IEEE Spectrum, 10

Sept. 2014, spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/advanced-cars/how-googles-autonomous-

car-passed-the-first-us-state-selfdriving-test.
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Leong, Jeanne. “Study Shows Autonomous Vehicles Can Help Improve Traffic Flow.” Phys.org
- News and Articles on Science and Technology, 20 Feb. 2018, phys.org/news/2018-02-
autonomous-vehicles-traffic.html.

“Self-Driving Cars Could Wipe out 4 Million Jobs - but a New Report Says the Upsides Will Be
Easily Worth It | Markets Insider.” Business Insider, Business Insider,
markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/self-driving-cars-could-kill-4-million-jobs-
economic-impact-worth-it-2018-6-1026937775.

Staff, Science X. “Maximizing the Environmental Benefits of Autonomous Vehicles.” Phys.org,

Phys.org, 15 Feb. 2018, phys.org/news/2018-02-maximizing-environmental-benefits-
autonomous-vehicles.html.