Humans have spent a large part of our history trying to innovate on out methods of travel. From airplanes, trains, and automobiles we have been attempting to make travel as easy an experience as possible. For many people the next step in this process is the self-driving car, a vehicle that would traverse our system of roads without a human operator. Just as in the early stages of any innovation, self-driving cars will need a testing phase in order to make sure that they fulfill safety requirement, unlike many other devices though, self-driving cars will be an active danger to even those not involved in them during testing phase. This is due to the fact that in order to test these cars accurately, they will have to be tested in realistic road conditions with other human drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. Needless to say, this has the potential to cause a substantial amount of backlash from the communities in which they are being tested. In order to minimize this, companies have begun their testing in Silicon Valley, a location close to development centers. Despite this forethought, it seems to be causing the opposite reaction as was intended by the testers. The issue being that those who develop new technology are often far more wary of it than the layman. A notable example of this being the large number of technology executives that limit their children’s screen-time as they are aware of the damage that it causes. This is a reflection of the fact that developers are the only people that are truly aware of the possible damages that their product can cause. Whether or not these cars are 100% safe is not the entire purpose of testing them however, it is to ensure that they are safer than human drivers and that they improve, hence why this is a testing phase.
Another concern of those living in areas where self-driving cars are being tested is their time efficiency and predictability. Some of those interviewed for the article claimed that the cars back up on certain roads when returning to their base and create unnecessary traffic, others claimed that they drive differently when around self-driving cars as they do not operate the same way as a human and thus are less predictable. The traffic issue is a result of all self-driving cars in a certain area having to return to their development center, thus causing a miniature “rush hour” specifically at the time and location of the self-driving cars. While traffic backups are certainly an issue in the world, it is worth noting that those commuting to the development center would still cause an instance of traffic as any large scale location of workers is susceptible to overcrowding on roads. In addition to this, the issue for the autonomous vehicles could be more easily rectified than that of a traditional business. The freedom of time given by self-driving cars means that development centers could stagger return times in order to alleviate the overcrowding that occurs due to their cars specifically. On the issue of the predictability of autonomous cars it is a fair point that they operate differently than a human, anyone that has spoken to an automated customer service line can tell you that you act differently when communicating with a computer than with a real person. In my opinion, this is certainly a problem that has some dangerous effects; however, perceiving automated cars driving differently is only a temporary issue. This would be due to two facts: one, after driving with autonomous vehicles for some time people will become adjusted to their driving style and know how to navigate the streets with their presence, and two, after enough time the amount of autonomous cars will make the roads safer by eventually removing driver error from the equation completely. The point being, both of these concerns, while completely valid, are able to be mitigated in the short term therefore making self-driving cars more acceptable in the present.
The issue of testing self-driving cars is an important one, as if we wish to be able to utilize this technology in the future it is imperative that we begin testing to improve their safety capabilities. While there are certain negatives to the current testing strategy, these are either easily rectifiable or necessary for the improvement of future safety in the industry. In addition to the improvable nature of many of these issues, in my opinion the positives outweigh the negatives in terms of the overall usefulness that autonomous vehicles pose to the future of our society is worth certain less than ideal conditions in the present.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/03/silicon-valley-pioneered-self-driving-cars-some-its-tech-savvy-residents-dont-want-them-tested-their-neighborhoods/