School Writing

Self-driving cars?

Self-driving cars are a blessing to humanity's transportation. It solves so many of humanity's problems such as minimizing the number of car crashes, drunk driving, and even tiredness. When people travel home drunk, they can just get in the car, and the car can drive them home! No problem! Can't keep your eyelids open wide enough? Hop right in and sleep! The self-driving car will take care of everything so... What's the problem?

The people of the world deserve to drive cars themselves. That's what the opposing argument would say. Really? Is this really true? "Over 90% of accidents today are caused by driver error. said Professor Robert W. Peterson of the Center for Insurance Law and Regulation at Santa Clara University School of Law" (Text 1, lines 34-36). The other ten percent are due to a technological failure in the cars. Can you really say that with billions of car crashes every year, and millions of people get hurt, killed, or mentally disabled due to accidents, is really proof that humans should be the ones driving the cars? No, it's not! Not at all. Of course, we can't rely on technology too much, so there should be a way to turn off in case, but other than that, humans should not be driving. We speed, or were too slow when driving in other cases. We don't park correctly and end up taking up a big chunk of the road, and we even pass cars on the left-hand side when people are going too slow, or about to turn when the lines on the road are a double yellow! This is not acceptable, and even still, there are other reasons humans are not capable of driving properly enough to spare the lives of parents, grandparents, children, and friends. And on back roads, that's not really even road in some areas of the country, and other countries? People can still drive because there are fewer people and the GPS in the car may not understand where to guide the road to the place you're traveling for whatever reason. See. everyone's happy!

Self-driving cars are potentially dangerous due to hackers, and vehicle malfunctions. ". But wide use of self-driving cars is still many years away, and testers are still sorting out hypothetical risks — like hackers — and real world challenges, like what happens when an autonomous car breaks down on the highway" (text 2, lines 18-20). Of course, things like this can happen, but again not all hackers are black tops*. There are also many white tops*, whose jobs are to build up internet security in the world to prevent black top and gray top* computer savvy people to prevent them from hacking into things. Even then, many people a popular hacking group called "Anonymous" is considered a horrible hacking group, but many times, they help people all over the world get freedom from overly strict governments, and inhumane things. There will always be back people in the world, but to put all hackers in the group of possible people to hack into your car? Not all of them will do it, and with white top hackers improving internet security every day? They can surely do something to help with future possible hacks to vehicles. As for malfunctions, they are dangerous, but not as much as human drivers. Again, 90% of crashes are from human errors, not vehicles.

People will be put out of hundreds of jobs when these cars come out! This statement is both truthful, and false at the same time. Look at this quote; "Some of these may be a bit surprising, like postal carriers. But once fully autonomous vehicles are commonplace it would make sense for the Postal Service to make use of the technology to deliver mail, especially in areas where curbside mailboxes are standard and it would be rather simple for a mechanical arm to deposit and retrieve mail directly" (Text 3, lines 10-13). This Quote isn't one hundred percent in thinking straight. Of course, there will be less crashes, but people who want to work on cars, can help build cars too, and if a vehicle malfunction, car engineers can fix these malfunctions! And as for airports? We may be trusting our cars, but some people don't want to be in a car for hours. Even if they can sleep and the car is able to deliver them to their targeted location.... Who wants to be in a car that long? Then some people have to go to different cities suddenly, and get there pronto! Planes are much faster. Of course, planes can be booked out, and then the car will be the next option, but that doesn't the staff in airports! The thoughts of airports being put out of business aren't as complex as it seems because, in reality, not too many people will lose jobs in airports due to self-driving cars! Then people who can't afford jobs will still need a taxi, and delivering boxes through cars? Such as mail? It's illegal to look through other people's mail but it still happens. Wouldn't you rather have a person hand you the mail than get it yourself to find out... Someone stole your mail that was over a thousand dollars to buy and mail! This is exactly the reason why even if self-driving cars make their innovation in society, jobs won't be completely lost!

Thousands of people all over the world are scared of self-driving cars, and that is their right. Yet, they are still more efficient, and you can do things while traveling like finish that chapter you've been dying to finish, or do homework, and even sleep. Again, there should be a safety plan in case there is a hacker, such as turning off the auto-drive on the car, but other than that, it's still the safer choice! Do you really want to possibly kill someone in a car accident if you haven't yet? Or even injure them for that matter... Fun fact, did you know a lot of car accidents near end up being within twenty miles of your home, and in parking lots? This is because of people driving recklessly because they're too comfortable, and in parking lots, people go down the wrong lane and drive right through parking sections, not watching for people or other cars. Just think how much we could help people!

Black tops*- Hackers or tech savvy people who work against the law.

White tops*-Hackers or tech savvy people who work with the government to improve internet security

  Gray tops*- Hackers or tech savvy people who violate laws, but without the vicious intent.