Autonomous vehicles are the future! The bright and shining future.
Sorry in advance for the excessively long post, but as you’ll see, I am VERY passionate about this topic, especially since I’ve been personally affected by human driving error, including my own. Anyway, read on if you dare…
I don’t get the fear and panic behind autonomous vehicles. It’s based on nothing but irrational emotion. People cite facts without any context like “self-driving cars have already killed two people!”
Yeah, they aren’t perfect, as is no human invention. But if you do the research and the math, this should—but usually doesn’t, because humans are irrational—eliminate that fear.
Autonomous vehicles have killed two people. Yes, this is true. But do you know how many HUMAN drivers have killed people?
3,700. PER DAY.
Yes, you heard that right. There are 3,700 fatal car accidents every single day. Would autonomous vehicles completely eliminate the problem of car wrecks? No. But nothing would. Car wrecks are going to happen. It’s just a fact of life. Would they drastically REDUCE those odds? Yes, absolutely!
Autonomous vehicles have technically existed since 1984, and they’re only getting better and safer as technology advances. So in 38 years, since the first self-driving car was invented, two people have died from them. Only TWO! Yes, this is a tragedy, as is any death, but not nearly as bad as 3,700 deaths PER DAY! Do the math.
Fine, I’ll do it for you:
As I said, autonomous cars have existed for 38 years, which is 13,870 days. So far, two people have died. So that’s 0.0001441961 deaths per day, or one death every 19 years. There you go.
Would you rather have one death every 19 years or 3,700 deaths EVERY F&@$ING DAY?!? You’d have to be a literal psychopath to say the latter.
Human drivers do stupid stuff. They drive drunk or high. They get road rage. They don’t notice the car in the other lane. They fall asleep while driving. They SPEED! Computers do none of those things. Yes, computers malfunction and sometimes die, but do you know what usually happens when they do that?
They just stop. They crash. They SLOW DOWN. So if a self-driving car malfunctions, what’s most likely to happen? It’ll just stop. And since the computers in all of these cars will be able to communicate with each other, just like phones and laptops do today, all the other cars will automatically either stop or go around the malfunctioning car. Yes, a self-driving car malfunctioning and dying will be annoying, but not life-threatening. Just get the car towed to the nearest charger, hook it up, and you’re ready to go. You might be late to work, but at least you won’t be DEAD like those 3,700 people per day!
“But…bu…but Nick! What if someone hacks the system and causes us all to die?!” I hear you all saying. 🙄
While that sounds very conspiracy-theory-esque and relatively implausible, I will acknowledge that this is possible. Yes, it might happen. MIGHT. It’s a possibility. But people said the same thing about radios. Now we all have a radio in our car and don’t think twice about it. Same with computers. Now we all have a computer that we literally hold in our hands and stick in our pockets. Yet we don’t worry about the world ending because Elon Musk or Vladimir Putin hacks all our computers. Well, some people do, but those people are labeled conspiracy theorists, and rightly so.
The fear of autonomous vehicles is pathetic. It’s nothing but technophobia, you know, like your crazy great aunt sits on her couch believes about aliens abducting her from her TV. Yes, they might end up killing 0.00014411961 people per day, but the 3,699.99986 lives it will save is definitely worth it.
Autonomous vehicles don’t have strokes, heart attacks, or seizures while driving and put other drivers’ lives in danger. If you don’t trust autonomous vehicles, you’ve clearly never seen humans drive.
Like it or not, autonomous vehicles are the future, and in my not-so-humble opinion, that future is extremely bright and CAN’T COME SOON ENOUGH! 😁 😁 🎉 🚗 🛞
I don’t get the fear and panic behind autonomous vehicles. It’s based on nothing but irrational emotion. People cite facts without any context like “self-driving cars have already killed two people!”
Yeah, they aren’t perfect, as is no human invention. But if you do the research and the math, this should—but usually doesn’t, because humans are irrational—eliminate that fear.
Autonomous vehicles have killed two people. Yes, this is true. But do you know how many HUMAN drivers have killed people?
3,700. PER DAY.
Yes, you heard that right. There are 3,700 fatal car accidents every single day. Would autonomous vehicles completely eliminate the problem of car wrecks? No. But nothing would. Car wrecks are going to happen. It’s just a fact of life. Would they drastically REDUCE those odds? Yes, absolutely!
Autonomous vehicles have technically existed since 1984, and they’re only getting better and safer as technology advances. So in 38 years, since the first self-driving car was invented, two people have died from them. Only TWO! Yes, this is a tragedy, as is any death, but not nearly as bad as 3,700 deaths PER DAY! Do the math.
Fine, I’ll do it for you:
As I said, autonomous cars have existed for 38 years, which is 13,870 days. So far, two people have died. So that’s 0.0001441961 deaths per day, or one death every 19 years. There you go.
Would you rather have one death every 19 years or 3,700 deaths EVERY F&@$ING DAY?!? You’d have to be a literal psychopath to say the latter.
Human drivers do stupid stuff. They drive drunk or high. They get road rage. They don’t notice the car in the other lane. They fall asleep while driving. They SPEED! Computers do none of those things. Yes, computers malfunction and sometimes die, but do you know what usually happens when they do that?
They just stop. They crash. They SLOW DOWN. So if a self-driving car malfunctions, what’s most likely to happen? It’ll just stop. And since the computers in all of these cars will be able to communicate with each other, just like phones and laptops do today, all the other cars will automatically either stop or go around the malfunctioning car. Yes, a self-driving car malfunctioning and dying will be annoying, but not life-threatening. Just get the car towed to the nearest charger, hook it up, and you’re ready to go. You might be late to work, but at least you won’t be DEAD like those 3,700 people per day!
“But…bu…but Nick! What if someone hacks the system and causes us all to die?!” I hear you all saying. 🙄
While that sounds very conspiracy-theory-esque and relatively implausible, I will acknowledge that this is possible. Yes, it might happen. MIGHT. It’s a possibility. But people said the same thing about radios. Now we all have a radio in our car and don’t think twice about it. Same with computers. Now we all have a computer that we literally hold in our hands and stick in our pockets. Yet we don’t worry about the world ending because Elon Musk or Vladimir Putin hacks all our computers. Well, some people do, but those people are labeled conspiracy theorists, and rightly so.
The fear of autonomous vehicles is pathetic. It’s nothing but technophobia, you know, like your crazy great aunt sits on her couch believes about aliens abducting her from her TV. Yes, they might end up killing 0.00014411961 people per day, but the 3,699.99986 lives it will save is definitely worth it.
Autonomous vehicles don’t have strokes, heart attacks, or seizures while driving and put other drivers’ lives in danger. If you don’t trust autonomous vehicles, you’ve clearly never seen humans drive.
Like it or not, autonomous vehicles are the future, and in my not-so-humble opinion, that future is extremely bright and CAN’T COME SOON ENOUGH! 😁 😁 🎉 🚗 🛞
36-40, M
