Driverless / Autonomous Cars and vehicles ...
Self driving, Autonomous vehicles or Driverless cars. What are they all about? Some say these are the sci fi things of the future, being developed right here, today.
True Driverless vehicles, as the name suggests, will need no human interaction to enable a journey from A to B. Importantly, the roads and infrastructure that Driverless cars will use, should not need to be specially adapted, which is a key requirement for an autonomous vehicle to qualify for the name. This, along with many other things, remains to be seen.
Developers and champions of Autonomous vehicles, claim the most important benefit is, that they will eliminate driver error, and therefore road traffic accidents, injury and Deaths. Additionally, highly accurate driverless technology, will greatly improve the flow of traffic, and therefore reduce, or even eliminate traffic jams altogether.
Some chilling facts: According to the National Safety Council, In 2015 the United States had its deadliest traffic year in terms of Road traffic related deaths since 2007. Almost 19,000 people were killed between January and June 2015. This represents almost 15 percent increase over the same period last year.
During this period, 2.3 million “serious injuries,” (Those requiring medical assistance / consultation), were sustained - The estimated costs of these accidents — including medical expenses, wages, productivity loss, property damage and others — increased by 24 percent, at almost $153 billion.
Another huge benefit would be the claim back / leverage of time, from no longer needing to concentrate on driving behind a wheel for hours on end. According to a study done by Harvard Health Watch, based on driving from around 17 years of age until about 79 years, the average American spends 101 minutes per day driving. This means that in a lifetime, they will spend 37,935 hours driving a car. This is almost 4 and a half years! (This is just an average. My own total time spent driving in my life will probably be nearer 8 years before I finish)
These journey "years" could instead be taken up with writing reports, having meetings, reading books, playing games, learning a Shakespeare Sonet, watching movies, learning a musical instrument, eating meals, or maybe just sleeping, all whilst being transported to your destination.
There are now dozens of well known Car Makers, Innovators and Technology providers, who are busy testing, developing and collaborating in the Driverless sector. These include Audi, BMW, Ford, Google, General Motors, Volkswagen, Volvo and many many more.
You can view the growing list of autonomous vehicle manufacturers here
Lets end this article with Waymo - They have steadfastly continued to develop their technologies and have invested huge sums in doing so. But above all else, their road testing statistics speaks for themselves - Since 2009 they have clocked up over 10 million road testing miles; maybe not much over 9 years some may say. But amazingly, the last 5 Million have been travelled in the last 9 months
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