How Might Autonomous Cars Prevent Car Accidents?

By Staff Writer

Five car accident related deaths occur every hour. Every hour of every day.

When you let that figure soak in, we think you’ll agree that it’s a pretty startling statistic. So wouldn’t you be interested in any way to reduce this number?

According to ScienceAlert, it’s estimated that autonomous cars could prevent up to 90% of car accident fatalities. That would mean almost 300,000 lives saved and $190 billion in healthcare costs saved per year.

Google and other tech giants have done studies showing that autonomous cars are safer than most people give them credit for. These cars have been in accidents on the road, but they’re almost never the fault of the driverless car.

Why is this?

The theory is that drivers don’t often follow all of the rules of the road to the letter, whereas driverless cars do. So drivers often don’t anticipate this fact and cause a lot of fender benders.

In addition to being safer than most human drivers, autonomous cars also eliminate the problem of drunk and distracted drivers, which is a massive and growing problem in America.

In 2015 alone, 10,265 people died as a result of drunk driving. Cell phone usage while driving accounts for approximately 1.6 million car accidents per year.

When Americans were polled about their feelings concerning driverless vehicles, the majority of people (about 75%) said they would prefer to keep some level of control over their car. People generally need time and continued proof that new technology is going to do what it claims it will do.

Some people are even less convinced about the potential of self-driving cars after an autonomous Uber car killed a woman in the street in Tempe, Arizona back in March, in what appears to be the first reported fatal crash involving a self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian in the US.

In response, many people gave their two-cents about the incident — including John M Simpson, privacy and technology project director with Consumer Watchdog, who has called for tighter regulations of the technology.

“The robot cars cannot accurately predict human behavior,” said Simpson. “The real problem comes in the interaction between humans and the robot vehicles.”

But many experts say we’re still in the early stages of this technology, and certain “bugs” will have to be worked out.

As time goes on, it looks as though autonomous cars may prove to be some of the safest technology created thus far. If they can really live up to the statistics, we may be seeing far less accidents and deaths due to mistakes made by imperfect or distracted drivers.

If you’ve been a victim of a human car accident due to negligence of any kind, contact the experience team of Tennessee car accident attorneys at Gilreath & Associates for your free consultation.

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