Edward is the driver of a runaway trolley car and the brakes have just failed.

Ahead of
him he sees five workers working on the tracks. The hills are unclimbable due to the steepness.
There are two choices. One choice being to do nothing and kill the five workers and say you
couldn’t do anything about it; it’s not your fault. The second choice, is choosing to turn to the
side track where there is only one worker, same situation with the banks. You can turn killing the
one, or do nothing and kill the five. The modern day equivalent would be the self driven cars.
Would self driven cars have the “right” to choose to crash and possibly kill its passengers
because of a jaywalker?

Imagine being the driver of a runaway trolley. Up ahead you see five workers working on
the track. The banks are too steep to run up, and they have their backs turned to you; there is
no stopping. However, you notice a switch that directs you onto a track going off to the right. On
that track, there is only one worker. You can choose to not do anything killing the five, or think
about well-being. By not doing anything and killing the five, you can say that it wasn’t your fault
and there wasn’t anything you could do about it. The other option is that you can turn sparing
the five but killing the one, because five lives are greater than one life. With that being said, you
could then in turn go to jail for manslaughter, because you chose to turn killing the one singular
worker.

One of the interviewees stated that if the one worker was a family member or a close
friend, that they would NOT turn the lever because the other five were strangers and “they aren’t
that important to me” but if it were just another stranger, they would definitely turn. Another said
they wouldn’t turn the switch because it is more immoral to kill than to let die. The one I agree
with is to turn, sparing the five and killing the one because of well-being. In some religions, it
would be considered an honor to be “chosen” and sacrificed. With five people being saved
population has a greater chance of increasing. However, if the one lonely worker was a family
member or someone I knew my answer changes. I would not turn the lever sparing the five. I
choose not to because if I killed a close friend or a relative, my family wouldn’t look at me in the
way they used to.

The biggest problems with self driving cars is figuring out who pays the consequences of
an incident. Who would pay for a speeding ticket? Or whose fault is the accident? All of our
“known” rules would have to be adjusted, and how do you know that the car was in self-driving
mode at the time of the incident. Self driving cars could be more dangerous or less dangerous,
depending on its surroundings and environment. Car crashes are the leading cause of death in
americans ages 4-34, and each year due to accidents cost nearly $300 billion. Some pros of
self driving cars are that they are more efficient possibility of less traffic, and reduced emissions.