Autonomous vehicles - Are they safe and viable future

transport for our cities?

Since I was younger, watching science fiction movies, I recognized numerous autonomous cars. I’ve
always thought they were intriguing, however lots came to my mind. ‘What if someone hacks them?’,
‘What if the car breaks and there is a car accident? Who will take responsibility for that?’. In the past
when thinking about these questions, autonomous vehicles have only existed in futuristic science
fiction stories therefore, it was useless to worry about the consequences that would arise with them
as well as the convenience.

Nonetheless, our technology has been growing rapidly in a short period of time, and it is more than
possible to work on developing autonomous cars using these technologies. This puts us in a position
where we should start thinking about the consequences, not ignoring them, for a better future.
What are autonomous vehicles?
Autonomous vehicles (AV) are cars or trucks capable of sensing its environment and operating
without human involvement. Human passengers are not required to take control to operate the
vehicle at any time, nor are they required to be present in the vehicle at all. They are also commonly
known as self-driving cars or “driverless” cars. These self-driving cars can go anywhere traditional
cars go, doing everything that experienced human drivers do.

There are 6 different levels of driving automation ranging from level 0 to 5, fully manual to fully
autonomous.

Different levels of autonomy

https://www.synopsys.com/automotive/what-is-autonomous-car.html

In level 0, there is no automation. All major systems and driving tasks are controlled manually by
humans such as steering, acceleration and braking.

In level 1, there are certain systems that work automatically one at a time, assisting the driver. This
includes monitoring speed through cruise control and automatic braking. In level 2, the car provides
at least two simultaneous automated functions such as steering and acceleration, however still
requires humans to monitor all tasks.

From level 3, the automated system starts to be in charge and takes responsibility in the driving
environment, whereas until now, humans were in charge. The vehicle can manage all safety-critical
functions under certain conditions, however human override is still required.

In level 4, the vehicle is fully autonomous in some driving scenarios or under specific circumstances,
however the driver can take over if wanted. In the last level, there is full automation. The vehicle is
completely reliable and is capable of performing all driving tasks under all conditions. Human
attention or interaction is unnecessary.
How do they work?
When I say autonomous vehicles, I am really talking about vehicles in level 6 of autonomy. ‘A vehicle
that has full control’ is easy to say, but how do they actually work?

Autonomous vehicles rely on sensors (devices used with other electronics that detects and responds
from the physical environment), actuators (a mechanical device in charge of moving and controlling
a mechanism or system electrically, manually, or by various fluids), complex computer algorithms
(computer procedures that tells your computer what to do and what steps to take), machine
learning systems (an application of AI that provides the systems to be able to learn and improve
automatically from experience without being programmed), and powerful processors to run the
software programme. The vehicles would as well construct an internal map.

Therefore, when humans demand, order where they would want to go to, the software would plot a
path based on the map constructed, then send instructions to the actuators of the vehicles which
would control braking, acceleration and steering. Algorithms would make the vehicles become
aware of the hard-coded rules such as avoiding obstacles and following traffic rules. These
algorithms would be supported by video cameras detecting such things as above.

Why would you want to normalize autonomous vehicles?

Although some consequences may come with these knowledgeable vehicles, there are reasons for
why people would still like to normalize such vehicles, risking the worries.

Firstly, autonomous vehicles could increase safety. According to the government data in America, 94
percent of car crashes are caused due to driver behaviour or error. However, autonomous vehicles
could improve these errors by, for example, looking out for things people wouldn’t be able to notice
while driving such as adding more sensors, or to result human behaviour not becoming important at
all because of its full autonomy.

In July 2017, American personal injury law firm Cooney and Conway found driverless cars could stop
approximately 90 percent of accidents, save around 300,000 lives per decade, and save up to $871
billion from road traffic accidents. This is believed to be mainly focused on drugged driving,
speeding, impaired driving and distraction.

Secondly, they will reduce emissions. The main emissions of a car engine are nitrogen gas, carbon
dioxide and water vapour. These affect the environment greatly and pollutes the air. Global warming
is a big issue these days, and it is a great positive that you could reduce the amount of release with
these gases. Excessive speed, braking and reaccelerating all release large amounts or emissions.
However, because autonomous cars will travel at compatible speeds and distances, the need to
speed, brake or reaccelerate will reduce. In other words, the vehicles would be able to maintain safe
distances from one another. The technology that driverless cars have, would also allow them to
communicate with roadside infrastructure such as traffic lights and road congestion, and use these
information to use fuel more excessively.

In addition, companies hope to use electric power instead, as fossil fuels would be harder to operate
in full autonomy.

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2016/09/07/google-autonomous-goog-f.html
(I used this picture to show that many different companies are testing autonomous vehicles such as google
and they are getting closer to our daily lives.)

Thirdly, it will open up driving to more people. Driving is not the same for everyone. People have to
be a certain age with certain knowledge and skills in driving. However, if driverless cars normalize,
more people will be able to experience the convenience, especially people with disabilities or
seniors. They will be able to live with greater independence relying on such vehicles, finding it much
easier and more comfortable to get around by car. There will be no need for drivers’ licenses or tests.

Fourthly, there will be less traffic. As mentioned above, the vehicles would be able to communicate
with one another and will be able to identify the optimal route. This will help cars to spread out,
including in areas that had never been used before, which will decrease traffic. Less traffic also
decrease car accidents and improve your health.

Car crashes are often caused by bad traffic, therefore less traffic will also mean less crashes will
occur. To add, traffic has been shown to cause a rise in blood pressure, depression and anxiety and
quality sleep. Therefore, without traffic, your health will also be improved.

Fifthly, it will allow drivers to gain free time. Since the vehicles will do all the driving, the drivers could
do other things they want to do, instead of wasting their time on driving. They could catch up with
families and friends, do work they haven’t finished, or even just simply enjoy a cup of coffee and rest.
You might think gaining some free time from driving won’t be a big difference however, according to
a study, the average American spends 101 minutes per day driving. This means we spend 37,935
hours driving a car in a lifetime if we say we start driving at 17. This shows how much time you could
earn.

Sixthly, there will be an increased demand for new jobs. While old jobs such as taxi drivers, bus
drivers or pizza delivery drivers will have job losses in massive scales, the demand for other jobs will
increase such as hi-tech machine experts, software developers, and wireless network engineers.
These jobs would be popular as creating new software systems and detailed sensors would be a
major importance related in creating, developing better autonomous vehicles.

Lastly, self-driving cars could reduce the number of automobile thefts. We are already familiar with
biometric technologies as we use such technology like our fingerprints and facial recognition as our
passwords on devices. This could also apply on autonomous vehicles and for example only respond
when programmed passengers enter. It could be set up so that when non-recognized passengers
enter, the vehicle will automatically shut down or refuse to start. Alarm systems could also be
programmed and cameras that will connect to the driver’s phone recording what is happening in the
vehicle live.

What are the arguments against autonomous vehicles?

https://ceoworld.biz/2019/09/27/increasing-trust-engineering-autonomous-vehicles-that-are-safe-and-secure/
(I put the picture in order to show how technological, smart and convenient autonomous vehicles would be as the picture
seems to show it well)

There are many arguments against autonomous vehicles. Some highly disagree in normalizing such
vehicles.

Firstly, human drivers may never be completely eliminated from driving. Generally, the vehicle itself
would be driving in full autonomy. However, in emergency situations, you will still have to know how
to operate the car manually and instructions to take in this situation. This leaves us back to the
beginning where people have to take driver’s tests and receive licenses as all drivers are most likely
to go through an education course learning how and what to do. Therefore, there won’t be a huge
difference in including people with disabilities or seniors.

Secondly, although automobile thefts could decrease, there will be other security issues we will have
to consider. Every other computer or phone gets hacked occasionally, therefore it is most certain
autonomous cars will too.

Not only can it gain privacy and information by hacking, but it can also gain control over the vehicle
itself. For example, you may demand to go to the local shops, however the vehicles could follow
other instructions as if a hacker was able to get into the car’s software, they could reprogram the car
to do any number of things. This means the hacker could also cause car accidents on purpose,
without the driver even knowing, controlling the vehicle.

Thirdly, slightly related to my second point, self-driving cars would collect a lot of personal
information. Its software would store information about trips and could keep records about your
destinations such as the stores you visit often and the types of restaurants you prefer. Unless there
are privacy protections that would prevent manufacturers from selling these data to other places or
companies, marketers are more likely to use this information to make individualized advertising.

Fourthly, there are no legal guidelines about the responsibility from accidents occurred with
autonomous vehicles. Since everything related to driverless cars are new to us, and there hasn’t
been similar cases before, it is hard to decide who will take responsibility legally if there is an
accident caused. It is especially hard to decide since although the driver is a human, the vehicle is in
charge of every move and choices it makes. For example, the vehicle could hit a pedestrian while the
driver is sleeping or doing something else. This needs to be investigated more and made clear.

Fifthly, the technologies used currently may restrict safe use in harsh weather conditions. Although
the technology we have currently is great, it is not perfect. The sensors have a limit in what they can
detect. Therefore, when there is heavy rain or snow, it may stop providing as much visual resources
for the sensors in the vehicles to work normally. It might make it harder to detect things or may stop
it from detecting at all. This could cause serious accidents for both passengers and pedestrians. It
can also be a difficulty for countries that regularly experience these harsh conditions such as Canada.

Sixthly, the cost of autonomous vehicles are unaffordable for average people who receive average
salaries. One of the most important features in autonomous vehicles are the technology and
software. Driverless cars are made out of technology worth an average of $100,000. This was based
in 2018, therefore the cost has decreased in the past several years, however, it is still hard to afford.
Only families with higher salaries will be able to afford these vehicles therefore it could create a
bigger gap between the rich and the poor. This is a huge problem already and should not become
any worse.

Lastly, it may create a net loss of jobs in society. I know I have said above while mentioning the pros
that even if jobs are loss new jobs will gain popularity. However, not all people can become hi-tech
machine experts, software developers, or wireless network engineers. For the jobs mentioned
above, you need to be well educated, well provided and well supported. As jobs such as pizza
delivery drivers or bus drivers vanish from sight, job opportunities for the less fortunate people
would decrease. This again, could create a bigger gap between the poor and the rich.

The impact on society autonomous vehicles occur?

Self-driving cars will impact hugely on society once they normalize. Safety is one impact on society
that will occur. As mentioned previously in the arguments against autonomous vehicles, we are not
100 percent sure if autonomous vehicles are safe for us to normalize. If autonomous vehicles
become popular without knowing that we will be okay for sure owning these vehicles, many
accidents may happen that shouldn’t. In fact, many people described that they wouldn’t feel safe in
autonomous vehicles.

This-graph-shows-how-the-public-feels-about-self-driving-cars-after-a-pedestrian-was-killed

Poverty gap is another huge topic to discuss. Poverty gaps are a major problem these days because it
impacts our society hugely, therefore everyone is trying to decrease this. However, if autonomous
vehicles begin to release, the gap will be even more noticable and clearer just looking at what type of
car the person is owning. People who are wealthy will be able to gain more free time as well as
having to stress less about driving just because they have slightly more money, when others won’t.

Especially the fact that you can gain more free time or have a larger option to do such things such as
drinking and not being able to worry about driving back home from the help of money will be vital
and come unfair towards the less fortunate.

At last, there is privacy. We use a lot of technology these days, and because of that, it impacts our
lives greatly. Technology is great however, sometimes our phones or computers can be hacked, our
account on facebook or instagram could be searched by millions of people and we lose a lot of our
privacy. Now that our cars are going to be worked by technology, there is going to be even less
privacy for us. The vehicle could learn where you often go and where your house is, and this
information could be sold to other companies, and viewed by many others in order for people’s
goods such as creating personal advertisement. This can feel quite unpleasant.

As I read back, it is clear the impact autonomous vehicles give to society isn’t great.

Different companies working with autonomous vehicles

We know our future with autonomous vehicles are coming closer, but what companies are working
with them and how much closer are we from releasing autonomous vehicles?

Ford is looking forward to release a level 4 vehicle in 2021 with no gas pedals, no steering wheel and
the passenger never needing to take control of the vehicle in a predefined area. Ford has invested
$15 million into creating an Autonomous Vehicle Research Centre at Carnegie Mellon University. They
are willing to focus on improving self-driving technology and more refined sensors for the next five
years.

Hyundai is currently working on self-driving vehicles however seems to be focusing more on

affordability. Hyundai invested $1.7 billion into its self-driving car programme. In 2016, Hyundai
presented that they are targeting for highway in 2020 and urban driving in 2030.

BMW announced in 2016, a high profile collaboration with Intel and Mobileye in order to develop
their autonomous cars. They have presented that it would be possible the company could present
level 4 and 5 autonomous cars by 2021.
 Test-miles-and-reportable-miles-per-disengagement
(graph on self-driving car companies going the distance 2 years ago in 2018)

My opinion previously before researching

Before researching, I disagreed completely in autonomous vehicles. I thought it was a bad idea to
depend on technology so much and thought it was going a bit too far.

I thought it would be a much better idea to keep it the traditional way for our own safety and so on. I
didn’t want people forgetting to do things independently by themselves such as driving which is just
a simple skill. Thinking of autonomous vehicles also reminded me of the movie ‘WALL-E’, where
people couldn’t walk or do things by themselves but only relying on technology.

My final opinion

After researching about autonomous vehicles, I learnt about many positives that can happen from
autonomous vehicles I have never thought of. In the past, I thought the only good thing with self-
driving cars would be that you didn’t have to worry when you were drunk or tired. However, there
were many more positives than that such reducing emissions, less traffic and so on.

I also learnt the 6 steps of autonomy I would’ve never known if it wasn’t for the CBA. I never thought
we were already driving half automatic cars. Learning about the different sensors and technology
used in the vehicles made me realise how close we were to autonomous vehicles than I thought.
In conclusion, I have opened up my mind a little bit more and decided I would like to see them on the
roads and even own one myself one day, however, not now. I did like the positives of the vehicles
and really look forward to them coming out. However, I felt like we were less prepared for the
negatives that would happen and it was too early to release them. Maybe in the future when our
technology develops more, it’ll be possible to solve the negative problems such as making more
detailed sensors and complex algorithms.

I am glad I chose this topic as I have learnt so much from it. I have always wanted to know more
about autonomous vehicles, how they actually worked, and I am happy with what I gained through
several researches. I might’ve never seen the positive side of self-driving cars if I never chose this
topic.

I think it is important to take an interest in something that is close to our society and related to our
future in order to make the right choices and to know what is going on well. I enjoyed learning about
this topic and I hope others will be interested in this topic too as it is something very closely related
to our future.

References

https://www.synopsys.com/automotive/what-is-autonomous-car.html
This website helped me learn about the 6 different steps of autonomy and what autonomous cars were. I used
the graph here that shows the 6 steps.
This website is a good website because Synopsys is an electronic design automation company based in
California. Therefore I know the company exists.

https://www.lifehack.org/298279/3-amazing-benefits-driverless-cars-that-you-may-have-never-
imagined
The website helped me learn about positives in self-driving cars.
The author was Paisley Hansen, and it gave me trust about the website as it told me who the author was.
However, when I searched about her to learn more, her main focus was fashion, health, fitness and beauty which had
nothing really to do with self-driving cars.
Therefore, I had to make sure that it was not false information searching and checking other websites.

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/self-driving-cars-101 ...
The website helped me learn about what self-driving cars were, the 6 level of autonomy and how they worked.
It was shown UCSUSA stand for ‘The Union of Concerned Scientists’ based in the United States. It is a nonprofit science
advocacy organization and all of their articles related to science. I thought it was a good website.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car
I went in wikipedia because it was the first website I found when I searched for autonomous vehicles. However, there have
been many changes made by different people, and because anyone can change anything in wikipedia, I have decided it
wasn’t the best website to read from.
https://emerj.com/ai-adoption-timelines/self-driving-car-timeline-themselves-top-11-automakers/
This website helped me learn about different companies heading towards making autonomous vehicles such as Toyota or
Ford. I thought it was a good website because it said who it was written by which was Jon Walker, who covers broad tends
at the intersection of AI and industry for emerj.
It was last updated in December 24, 2019 which showed it was fresh information.

https://coalitionforfuturemobility.com/benefits-of-self-driving-vehicles/
Here I have referred to the positives of self-driving vehicles.
However, the website didn’t say which author wrote the article and there was not much description of the website I could
find, therefore I decided it wasn’t the best website.

https://www.inverse.com/article/44173-benefits-of-self-driving-cars
I learnt about the benefits from this website and knew it was a good website as it told me who the writer was which was
Mike Brown, and it was published in June 9, 2018 which is still pretty recent.
Mike Brown is a London based writer with a passion for tech and politics. He studied Journalism at Columbia University in
New York.

https://www.digitalistmag.com/cio-knowledge/2018/12/27/driverless-cars-future-or-stupid-idea-
06195350
I learnt about both the positives and negatives on the website.
It was published on the 27 December 2018, and was written by Dakota Murphey who is a tech writer specialising in cyber
security working with Redscan on this.
Therefore, I thought it was a good website.

https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/technology/artificial-intelligence/the-social-implications-of-
driverless-cars/
In this website, I learnt about the benefits of self-driving cars. I liked the website because it was published in 7, November
2018 which is pretty recent and it was presented well and easy to read.
The author was Keith Darlington who is a retired university lecturer in AI.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/7-arguments-against-the-autonomous-
vehicle-utopia/578638/
The Atlantic gave me great arguments against the autonomous vehicles. The Atlantic is an American magazine and
multiplatform publisher.
The article was published on December 28, 2018 and it was published by Alexis C.Madrigal. I thought it was a good website
however it didn’t tell much about the author.

https://connectusfund.org/21-key-pros-and-cons-for-self-driving-cars
The website had a lot of information for positives and negatives. However, the website seemed to have nothing to do with
tech or cars and the article seemed irrelevant compared to the other articles in the website.
The website recommended me bible verses after reading the article which was also a bit random and it didn’t tell who it
was exactly written by.

Autonomous-vehicles-and-their-impact-on-society-eff8f3fd766f
I learnt about the impact on society autonomous vehicles caused. I thought it was a good website because it was published
on May 25, 2019 which is recent and the author is a tech enthusiast and security researcher called Eric Grandt.