Can Self Driving Cars Get Speeding Tickets?

 Self Driving Cars  

Self-driving cars might be closer to hitting modern roads than you’d think. Here are some answers to the questions we all have about this up and coming technology.

Most of us think of self-driving cars more as a technology you might see featured on an episode of The Jetsons than a real-life mode of transportation. However, it turns out that self-driving cars might be closer to hitting modern roads than you’d think.

Google has already developed a functional prototype - a heavily modified Toyota Prius - which can navigate public roads with ease, and government officials in the UK have already approved live road testing of self-driving cars over the next few years. This means that while consumers can’t get their hands on self-driving technology, it will still find its way onto our roadways in the not-too-distant future.

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As the prospect of riding in a self-driving car becomes more and more realistic, drivers are forced to step back and think about how the technology will really affect their lives. There are so many questions to be answered, but these three have to be some of the biggest.

How smart will they be?

You’re driving down the road in your shiny new self-driving car, and a deer jumps out into the road. Unfortunately, you’re driving on a two-lane road, so your car will have to make an important decision. Should it swerve into the opposing lane to miss the deer, or should it continue driving toward a sure animal collision?

Imagine this scenario: you’re driving down the road in your shiny new self-driving car, and a deer jumps out into the road. Unfortunately, you’re driving on a two-lane road, so your car will have to make an important decision. Should it swerve into the opposing lane to miss the deer, or should it continue driving toward a sure animal collision?

It’s these types of questions that get people thinking about the implications of self-driving technology.

Experts say that self-driving cars will have undergone rigorous testing and special programming to take situations like these into account. However, they acknowledge that an autonomous machine will never have the same capacity for crisis response as a human being.

Furthermore, the first round of consumer-ready self-driving cars may still be equipped with manual override controls to handle sticky situations like the one outlined above, which is good because studies indicate that many drivers aren’t ready to hand over control of their vehicles completely.

Will there still be traffic tickets?

In a world where drivers don’t control the acceleration or maneuvering of their vehicles, it stands to reason that there wouldn’t be any more traffic tickets. However, industry analysts say it’s not quite that simple.

Existing prototypes of self-driving cars are actually programmed to drive with the flow of traffic. And obviously, self-driving cars will be cruising on roads filled with a mix of autonomous and manually driven vehicles. So if everybody else is going 15mph over the speed limit, you might just find your self-driving car careening down the highway just to keep up. And there’s nothing stopping law enforcement from writing a ticket in a situation like that.

When will we actually be able to buy them, and how much will they cost?

According to the KMGP and Center for Automotive Research, self-driving cars could be available to the public as soon as 2020. That means that the biggest, most revolutionary piece of automotive technology since the first mass produced automobile itself could be just a handful of years away!

But don’t get too excited. Estimates of cost on the first self-driving cars aren’t quite as exciting.

The technology required to produce current self-driving vehicle prototypes has an estimated cost that tops 300k. Regardless of the inevitable drop in cost as the technology grows and spreads, we can expect it to still be quite high when it hits consumer markets.

Roll on

All in all, self-driving cars are one of the most exciting technologies of our time. While they do come with some uncertainty, and despite the fact that their foundational technology still needs some refining, we may find ourselves surrounded by them in less time than we think!

Image Source -  L&L Automotive

By Carrie Thompson

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