Premature adoption of autonomous cars can save lives

Research and Development Corporation (RAND), an American non-profit think tank has published their analysis on the early adoption of autonomous vehicles. According to the research, introduction of driverless cars before they are perfected will result in saving thousands of potential accidental deaths on the roads over the years.

Currently, only the testing of fully autonomous vehicles is allowed while the cars on sale offer only partial automation. While there has only recently been some form of regulation over the driverless cars, most people are sceptical of using them. The research reveals that in 2016, over 37,000 people lost their lives on the American highways where driver error was the primary reason. While majority of people are happy with the current level of human drivers, they want absolutely perfect autonomous vehicles. The delay in introduction of such error free vehicles requires additional time and resources.

The human error factors like speeding, incorrect judgement of other road vehicles, or impaired / distracted driving causes over 90 percent of the crashes. Additionally, autonomous cars don't get drunk, tired or distracted. It is reported that while the autonomous cars of today are not perfect, the machine learning algorithms used by them do improve as they put on mileage. These cars communicate with other vehicles as well resulting in an exponential learning curve. Back in July, a US Congress panel introduced a draft on self-driving car regulations, which resulted in creation of a framework for autonomous car law. Meanwhile, states like California are already mulling introduction of such cars as soon as June 2018.

The researchers at RAND have developed a model based on different parameters like rate of adoption of autonomous vehicles, usage pattern of such vehicles, improvement factor of the cars and safety of other cars. Taking into account the mentioned parameters and more, the number of lives saved (or lost) over the upcoming decades with different scenarios has been estimated. Using the model to try over 500 different future scenarios, in almost all the cases, introduction of autonomous vehicles early resulted in lives being saved.

The organization has published a tool where one can input 8 different parameters and compare the future with and without the introduction of autonomous vehicles.

Source - RAND