Consider this – Right now a Tesla car is cruising the universe at 24,000 miles an hour and doing so autonomously!
Despite what we may think of handing control of our vehicles over to a computer, research is showing there is ample potential that doing so may save thousands of lives each year. While driverless will likely never be perfectly safe, the truth is safe human driving can be undermined by a variety of factors such as fatigue, distraction, drunk driving and a plain abundance of human error. According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than 90 percent of car crashes are the result of driver-related errors.
The industry is confident that autonomous vehicles that are safer on average than humans. But before launching self-driving en mass cars on U.S. roads, the question remains: How safe is safe enough?
The technology still faces challenges such as weather, traffic and cyber security issues. And evidence indicates to expect a mix of vehicles on the road for decades as people relinquish their intolerance for machine error versus the more common human variety.
In the meantime, the Tesla seems to be enjoying the ride!
