What Are the Dangers of Self-Driving Cars?
Self-driving cars get a lot of buzz, and it’s hard not to wonder exactly how safe they are – both in terms of riding in them and simply sharing the road with them. The bottom line is that when you get behind the wheel of your car, there are no guarantees, and self-driving cars contribute to the unpredictability of our roads. If you’ve been injured in a car accident that was caused by another driver or another entity’s negligence, don’t wait to consult with an experienced Charleston car accident attorney.
AI Is Subject to Glitches and Worse
According to IEEE Spectrum, which is a journal that’s edited by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, there have been 25 confirmed deaths and hundreds of accidents that led to injury and property damage since self-driving cars were unleashed in 2016 for research purposes. This in-depth report finds that the primary concerns – when it comes to self-driving cars and to all those vehicles out there that offer advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) – which both operate on language model principles like those employed by ChatGPT – include the following:
- The human errors in vehicle operations that often lead to accidents on our roadways are replaced by coding errors in self-driving cars.
- It’s difficult to predict how AI will fail, which makes proactively addressing potential problems more challenging.
- Self-driving vehicles have a hard time making judgment calls in uncertain conditions – when complete information is unavailable – which is a primary component of driving safely.
- Without near-constant maintenance in terms of updated information, self-driving vehicles can quickly become dangerously obsolete, such as when identifying unique vehicles on the road.
- Self-driving cars are designed to stop completely when the uncertainty encountered becomes unresolvable, and the stops themselves pose risks that include traffic congestion and confusion on our roadways.
Prevailing wisdom finds that driverless cars can be tricked into dangerous stops and faulty decisions by ordinary occurrences on our roads that drivers are better prepared to assess and safely accommodate.
Rear-End Collisions Are of Particular Concern
According to NHTSA – as shared by IEEE Spectrum – self-driving cars and cars that have integrated self-driving systems are more likely than other vehicles to be involved in rear-end crashes. This is despite multiple built-in systems, including computer vision and radar, that are designed specifically to avoid such accidents.
An Experienced Charleston Car Accident Attorney Can Help
While they get a lot of buzz, self-driving cars are unlikely to increase safety on our roads anytime soon. If you’ve been injured in a car accident that was caused by another person or entity’s negligence, the dedicated Charleston car accident attorneys at Parham Smith & Archenhold have a wealth of experience helping clients like you recover compensation for their full range of losses, and we’re here for you, too. Your claim is important to your future, so please don’t hesitate to contact us online or call 864-242-9008 for more information about what we can do for you today.