Every so often a huge technical development comes along that revolutionizes the way we operate on Earth. In the 1800s that was the development of the coal driven engine pushing us into the industrial revolution. In the late 1900s the internet came along and propelled us into the information age. What might be next you may ask? Its almost impossible to guess what the next great innovation of our time will be but one prospect that has huge potential is under way right now, the autonomous car (driverless car). Currently, Google is leading the way with their work on the autonomous car.
Image From: Wired
The first thought many people have when thinking about the benefits of an autonomous car is the safety aspect. It is well known that humans are not perfect and are often the primary liability in any process that contains some risk. For example in 2010 there were a total of 170,629 reported injuries related to driving accidents in Canada. Google has had a prototype of its car in operation now for a number of years and reported a grand total of 14 minor traffic accidents. The most interesting part about this statistic is that Google claims all 14 accidents are from human error of other drivers such as rear end hits, or cars disobeying stop signs and traffic lights. Therefore that puts Google’s car at zero accident faults. Autonomous cars also eliminate the possibility for impaired drivers to cause harm to others. Imagine if all cars on the road had this level of safety. The amount of lives that could be saved as well as stress taken from social services like hospitals or police could be immense.
Video from: Google Self-Driving Car Project
Any driver knows the frustration of road congestion when trying to make it to a destination on time. Believe it or not there are some who study traffic congestion and conclude that it too is a result of human driving errors. Often when you are on the highway a bizarre traffic jam occurs that clears up shortly after. This is due to a traffic wave from someone suddenly pressing their brakes and causing a growing domino effect. The implementation of autonomous cars has the ability to reduce congestion and increase fuel efficiency to the point of decreasing our road infrastructure needs.
Video from: Google Self-Driving Car Project
The autonomous car has the potential to revolutionize they way we operate in our society. Our level of safety on the roads can reach unimaginable heights reducing costs in areas such as healthcare, policing, infrastructure damage and social damage. The elimination of human error also opens the possibility for an unimaginably new level of car efficiency dampening our growing dependence on fossil fuels as well as saving valuable time and expenses in road infrastructure. When will this revolution come? Google anticipates to have a fully working prototype with all their current kinks solved by 2020!
