As many people might know, Las Angeles has one of the worst traffic problems in the United States that is a result of millions of cars driving on overcrowded roads. The result of traffic in the U.S. is millions of man hours wasted sitting on the road, increased travel times, increased cost of traveling, and more pollutants in the environment just to change a few. As it stands now around 76% of people drive to work alone which means there are more cars on the road and more gas used per person than if we could decrease this number by using public transportation. Additionally human drivers have faults such as carelessness, drunkenness, or tiredness. All of these problems are not present in a self-driving car.
One of the solutions to the traffic problem that is currently being looked into is a fleet of self-driving cars that would operate on a ride-sharing service similar to Uber. Essentially there would be numerous self-driving cars going through a city that could be summoned by a smart phone. The promise of this solution is that the cars could be operated by a smart algorithm that automatically sent the car closest to minimize driving distance and time, they would not cause accidents, Another benefit of this would be that there would be no need to waste time parking which has been estimated to account for 40% of gasoline consumption when driving in urban areas. According to this article Emilio Frazzoli looked at this scenario and concluded that only 300,000 self-driving cars would be necessary to serve the 6 million people in Singapore.
While this idea is still only being discusses and is in its very early stages there would be several road blocks such as developing the proper technology, convincing people to use them, and making it cheap.
While I personally think that using a large system of self-driving cars would be incredibly beneficial to nearly every aspect touched on this article I personally do not think I will see it happen in my lifetime, and I am personally unsure of whether or not I would even support the idea. For me, and most likely many Americans, I absolutely love the ability to go and get in my car and simply drive wherever I want. There is something wonderful about the freedom that owning your (or your parent's) own car and being able to drive down a highway. This is one of the reason I think people would be reluctant to adopt something such as this because it would mean giving up this freedom. A car that drives for you would not truly allow you to go anywhere, and would restrict the freedom that comes from owning a car.
Additionally, there is something about being in control of a car that I think would turn many people against the self-driving car. As it is I'm uneasy riding in a car with some people, and I don't know if I have reached the stage where I would trust a computer with my life to drive me through the roads of L.A. I think that many people would reject this idea simply because self-reliance is a huge part of being American, and they would dislike the idea of relying on a computer.
Overall, I simply like the control and freedom that driving provides me too much to support a program of self-driving cars, even if they actually are much better than humans. It would take a radical shift in my beliefs about cars to become one of the people who would use this program.
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