Share The Road: The Dangers of Self-Driving Cars

Self driving cars provide a danger to pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists. The “self-driving” title is misleading to many as the purchaser is led to believe that they can allow the car to drive unattended. However, that does not mean that the driver under any circumstances not be in the driver’s seat. Say a crash occured and driver A is in the passengers seat if a self driving car with no one in the driver’s seat because driver A doesn’t want a DUI. Driver A’s car collides with another car injuring its driver (Driver B). In the event of a malfunction or miscalculation of the software, the driver needs to be in the driver’s seat to regain control of the vehicle. Driver A’s poor choice caused permanent damage to Driver B. Driver A was intoxicated and did not want to drive but should still not have allowed the car to take control without Driver A being in the driver’s seat. Since self-driving cars don’t have “do not let the car’s software engage it you’re intoxicated” technically Driver A could sue the car manufacturer to cover some of Driver B’s medical bills and surgery fees. That being said, the manufacturer could say that they aren’t liable as the self-driving software often warns the driver to not leave the car in the self-driving mode without watching the road. That being said driver A was watching the road but was not able to react since they were not in the driver’s seat. After going back and forth a small portion of Driver B’s medical bills and surgery fees could be covered by the manufacturer (let’s say twenty-five percent) but the majority of Driver B’s medical bills and surgery fees will fall on Driver A. It was Driver A’s error that resulted in the car being left unattended, only to rear-end Driver B’s injuries that were the direct cause of Driver B’s medical bills and surgery fees. What’s most important is that there is no doubt of who caused the accident but assuming the computer from Driver A’s vehicle survived, it should be tested to see what caused the vehicle to fail to stop.

The news is no stranger to accidents caused by self-driving vehicles and it’s been made clear that it’s the buyer’s job not to blindly trust the vehicle. However, then the question of whether self-driving vehicles, known to have accidents such as these are safe for the public to buy without undergoing a redesign with fewer flaws. Driver A will have to live with the guilt of what their actions have done but it should also be made clear by the manufacturers of self-driving cars that there should always be someone in the driver’s seat and that that individual should not be intoxicated. Just because a vehicle is self-driving doesn’t mean that it’s reliable and should be trusted blindly. Road conditions and other drivers are unpredictable and something that a computer may not be able to account for which is why someone with a self-driving car still must have a diver’s license in order to get behind the wheel. Depending on what is in the contract Driver A signed when they bought the self-driving vehicle that caused the crash they may be able to sue the manufacturer to cover a small portion of Driver B’s medical bills and surgery fees or all of those medical bills and surgery fees may fall upon Driver A if they lose their case against the manufacturer or something in their contract eliminates the manufacturer from any liability assuming the crash wasn’t caused by a defect in the car (similar to how a regular car manufacturer isn’t liable in the event of a crash unless something in the car was defective such as the brakes).

This is the danger of just driving on the road with a self-driving car but cyclists are even more at risk. They don’t have a metal frame of a vehicle to shield them from a crash, instead, a cyclist that weighs only a fraction of the car’s weight is hit at high speeds and usually injured or killed. To refine this new laws need to be in place as self-driving software don’t always account for cyclists. Growing up we saw the demo of the melon wearing a helmet and the melon without one being dropped and the one without the helmet splattered but what about being hit by a vehicle? When I got my license my dad made me watch the documentary his driver’s ed class made him watch called ‘Red Asphalt” that showed the scenes of fatal crashes and those killed to see the dangers of driving but no documentaries like that exist for cyclists and cars colliding, especially not with self-driving cars. By making the sources available to cyclists and drivers they could be “scared straight” into proper road etiquette and caution people about the dangers of blindly trusting self driving cars to watch out for cyclists.