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Self-Driving Car Should Not Be Legalized Within a Decade

Pathway 3

ILAC

PEILUN TSAO

August 20, 2019

As time progresses, more and more high-tech products are published

to the world, driverless technology is one of them.

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Nevertheless, is the existing driverless car perfect enough to be

legalized? The original purpose of designing a driverless car is to avoid

accidents as much as possible, and if not, at least minimize the

collision speed. (Mcdermid, J. 2019. para.12) Automation efforts began

on a different type of vehicle fifty years ago, increasing the automation

of vehicles is one of the goals of people’s efforts. After decades, trains

of various automation levels are common to see now. One of the

reasons why it suffers way more fewer from technical challenges is

because it moves on the tracks. But humans still play a very important

role in this loop and continue dominate the train cab. (Dunietz, J. 2018.

para.2) Therefore, the driverless car should not be legalized within a

decade by safety and ethical issues. Also, pleasurable driving

experience will disappear gradually.

First of all, some people think that the driverless car technology can

effectively reduce the number of accidents on the road. However, there

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are several evidences show that current technology is not only unable

to reduce damages, but also causes casualties and losses due to

technical instability. The most well-known event was happened in the

United States, there was an autonomous Uber car bumped a pedestrian

in the street. Tempe police indicated that the self-driving car was in

autonomous mode at the time of the crash and that the vehicle hit a

pedestrian, who was walking outside of the crosswalk. There was a

vehicle operator inside the car at the time of the crash. (Levin, S. &

Carrie, J. 2018. para.2)

The author, Jesse Dunietz, a technology, energy and society fellow at

Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE), a think tank focused on

energy policy. He suggests that regardless of advances in self-driving

innovation, the uncertainty of full automation is still too high. If there is

any sign of how we effort to make vehicles automated, the cars and

trucks of things to come might be more reliant on human assistance

than we envision. (Dunietz, J. 2018.) Nowadays, globally speaking,

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more than 70 subway lines in 40 cities are now fully automated, but

many more lines support “semi-automatic train operation” (Dunietz, J.

2018. para.3) which means driverless car is still in an unreliable stage

so far. Furthermore, information security issues are also quite big

problems. We already have computers operating various aspects of the

driving experience today that are susceptible by hacker. In other

words, the driver will lose control over their vehicle owing to hackers

can access specific control mechanisms in certain brands and models

to some extent. This drawback would rise to a new level with

driverless car. There would need to be new levels of security installed

as a firewall around the vehicle to ensure it would not be used in an

inappropriate way. Further, there would be a risk that terrorists could

program a driverless car to engage in such actions without the

permission of the owner, although we could program computers to stop

potentially violent actions, such as a vehicle attack. (Ayres, C. n.d.

para.15)
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In addition, Ethical issue is one of the major problems that driverless

car manufacturers must solve to conform the requirement to let the

driverless car be legalized. Now that we know the current driverless

car can cause the accident, the next problem is how should

manufacturers set up the action that driverless cars would take when

the accident happen? And who will be sacrificed when an accident is

inevitable? This situation is equivalent to place the decisions in the

hands of the computer in the driverless car. Moreover, in a lawyer's

view, the entire statute will have to be rewritten to establish whether

the owner, driver, insurance company or technology’s inventors are

culpable. (Freeman, N. 2018. para.16) There needs to be a

comprehensive law to define who should take the responsibility when

the driverless car accident occurs, obviously not the driverless car

itself. Another serious problem about the information security is that

driverless car would collect a lot of personal information. The

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computer would store information about your trip when people use the

driverless car. It could keep records about your destinations, such as

the stores you prefer to visit, the restaurants you like, or even how

much you’re willing to spend on snacks. This data would be a treasure

trove of information that marketers would want to use to create

individualized advertising. Unless there are privacy protections in

place that would prevent the manufacturers of driverless car from

selling this data to third parties. (Ayres, C. n.d. para.16)

Last but not the least, for those people who love driving, they are not

willing to let go of the steering wheel and pedal control, because they

enjoy so much when they are manipulating the car, they feel that it is a

harmonious interaction with the car, like a musical instrument to a

musician. According to a 2016 Kelley Blue Book research, 80% of

Americans state that they should always have the option to drive

themselves; 64% expressed a need to be in control of their own car.

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(Buck, S. 2016. para.21) However, the function of driverless car will not

only end the delight of driving but also will eliminate the romance of

the road. (Buck, S. 2016.) Destroying the driving experience itself is so

bleak and dispiriting. (Freeman, N. 2018. para.15) The irony of

driverless technology is that the driverless car may need a fully alert

driver sit in the Driver's seat only to override the system when the

unexpected happens. So why bother? Instead, embracing the driving

experience which liberates people from the impotence of being

controlled by a robot. (Freeman, N. 2018. para.25)

To sum up, as far as the current situation is concerned, there are still

many unresolved problems in driverless vehicles, and more complete

supporting measures and legal regulations are needed. Legalized the

driverless car when everything is ready would be better for human, and

it takes time.
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Reference List
Ayres, C. (n.d.). 20 Pros and Cons of Driverless Cars Retrieved on

August 20, 2019

from https://vittana.org/20-pros-and-cons-of-driverless-cars

Buck, S. (2016). Self-driving cars will kill the romance of the road

Retrieved on August

20, 2019 from https://timeline.com/self-driving-cars-pleasure-

56c2c23ccce2

Dunietz, J. (2018). Despite Advances in Self-Driving Technology, Full

Automation

Remains Elusive Retrieved on August 20, 2019 from

https://undark.org/2018/11/22/opinion-self-driving-trains/

Freeman, N. (2018). Driverless cars will END the joy of driving, warns

Nick Freeman

Retrieved on August 20, 2019 from

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https://www.express.co.uk/lifestyle/life/916161/driverless-cars-uk-

end-joy-of-driving-nick-freeman-mr-loophole-lawyer

Levin, S. & Carrie, J. (2018). Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in

first fatal crash

Involving pedestrian Retrieved on August 20, 2019 from

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/uber-self-

driving-car-kills-

woman-arizona-tempe

Mcdermid, J. (2019). Self-driving cars: why we can't expect them to be

‘moral' Retrieved

on August 20, 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-01-self-driving-

cars-

moral.html