Driverless Cars: What The World Look Like Without Drivers

Since Google started working on a driverless cars project, the driverless cars have attracted worldwide attention. The thought of driverless cars running freely on the roads is both exciting and terrifying. Most of us surely heard that driverless cars are a new technology which becomes a reality. Whether any of us likes it or not. In Eric Biba’s Newsweek article, “What The World Look Like Without Drivers”, he predicts how our lives will change as people start to give up their personal vehicle for the benefit of driverless ones. I agree with the author that the driverless cars convenient and benefit to our lives in the future. Driverless cars improve safety and decrease traffic death, and also may subvert some industries and job markets. Likewise,

By eliminating the element of human errors, driverless cars can predict and avoid traffic accidents. While if the risks of driving are removed, will there be any need for car insurance? Biba states the insurance business will be impacted by driverless cars, “it’s a huge public health benefit that will ripple through the health care, law enforcement and insurance sectors. A recent study by the insurance, tax and auditing firm KPMG found that if accidents drop by 80 to 90 percent, the personal auto insurance sector could also fall by as much as 60 percent due to lost premiums. Some of that could be made up by insuring manufacturers, who will likely take on the burden of responsibility for car-related accidents”. Insurance premiums are a direct function of the frequency and severity of accidents. As technology inevitably evolves, driverless cars are becoming much safer, and the drivers will need less coverage of the cars. The result is, the premiums will drop, the business shrinks. Similarly, driverless cars will tremendously alter job markets. One of the jobs will be affected is police. Biba predicts the highway patrol will be cutting the need for them, “the elimination of impaired drivers means there will also be less need for highway patrol—after all, driverless cars don’t speed, have heart attacks behind the wheel or drive drunk”. Pulling over

Biba describes driverless cars exist will smooth the traffic flow, “for commuters, driverless cars bring good news: ‘The driverless car will smooth the traffic flow,’ says Egil Juliussen, director of research and principal analyst of automotive technology at IHS, an analytics firm. ‘The lights will be coordinating [with the cars], so you don’t have all that stop and go’”. One of the reasons why traffic jams exist is due to people’s behavior of waiting for the car in front to start accelerating. No matter what the causes of the original stop or slow down, the continuous effects which create the traffic jam. If every driver do the same behaviors, and make consistent and logical decisions, and traffic jam may be reduced. However, that is not how human will be. The good thing is, the driverless cars have own system to collect diverse data, and the cars themselves will adapt to conditions immediately around it. In order to judge or seek out new routes by themselves, it could help avoid the phenomena of stop-and-go in the traffic flow, and prevent prolonging the traffic jam ahead. In short, driverless cars make use of their systems to help to make less traffic flow on the