Imagine getting to sit back and relax, watching your favorite

movie on Netflix or reading your favorite book, while your car drives
you to Chicago to pick up your friend at the airport. What fantasy world
is this? A world filled with driverless cars! And its a world thats closer
than you think. I have done some research in the field of driverless
technology and would like to share with you what I have found. In our
sprawling urban society, cars are our ticket to any destination, though
they require our full and constant attention for the entire time we are
using them. As components of a driverless car are becoming
commercially available on the newest cars, such as accident
prevention, companies have begun test-driving their own completely
autonomous cars. While this does seem to tell us that mass produced
driverless cars are not far off, the legal ramifications are far from
resolved.
I will now begin by explaining the advances that have been made
recently in driverless car technology.
Components of driverless car technology are already available on
the public market. An article from the Economist in 2013 discusses how
systems that take control of the car in case of emergencies, such as
breaking for an accident up ahead, are already integrated into massproduced cars. These systems utilize sensors that analyze the cars
surroundings from all directions. This allows the car to react to any
imminent threats to its passengers safety.
Now that I have discussed current driverless car technology, I
would like to discuss the work being done to start mass-producing
driverless cars.
Small-scale testing on fully autonomous cars in real-world
settings is already taking place. The best known of example of this, as
described by the Wall Street Journal in 2013, is of Googles driverless
car program. This testing program has logged hundreds of thousands
of miles with several professional drivers at the wheel at all times just
in case. There has yet to be any documented incident that was the
cars fault. The cars are made recognizable by the two large lasers that
are surmounted on the top of the vehicle. Google has even made a
statement, as reported by the Telegraph in 2013, that their driverless
cars are safer than professional human drivers. The scale of driverless
testing is about to reach new heights when Volvo introduces 100
driverless cars to the streets of Sweden in 2017.
With this said, I will now move on to the ethical and legal
ramifications of driverless cars ruling the roads.
The biggest problem with driverless cars is that there is almost
no legal precedence for incidents involving driverless cars. According
to the Wall Street Journal in 2013, only three states have begun to
address legal issues having to do with driverless cars, with Nebraska
being the only state to pass actual legislation. California passed a law
telling the Dept of Motor vehicles to draft rules for driverless cars by

2015. Florida has directed its own motor-vehicle agency to give a

report by 2014 on driverless cars. Nevada drafted legislation that
requires any driverless cars to be tested for 10,000 hours before going
out on the open road. On a federal level, the national highway and
traffic safety administration said it planned on conducting research on
the topic, but has not begun drafting rules on driverless cars. The
biggest issue right now is the issue of liability. There has yet to be any
real consensus on whether the makers of the car will be liable for any
injuries, damages, or deaths that occur due to accidents.
Now that we have reviewed the legal ramifications of driverless
technology, I would like to conclude.
Components of the technology needed for driverless cars exist
today, and are currently being tested by companies like Google, while
the US government has yet to discuss the legal ramifications of
driverless cars. With humans at the wheel, car-related fatalities are at
about 1.3 million worldwide according to the Washington Post in 2013,
all which could potentially be prevented by a world populated by selfdriving cars. For that reason, I am looking forward to such a day.

References
(April, 2013). Look, no hands. The Economist. Retrieved from
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21576224-oneday- every-car-may-come-invisible-chauffeur-look-no-hands
Khazan, Olga. (January, 2013). A surprising map of countries that have
the most
traffic deaths. The Washington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/18/asurprising-map-of-countries-that-have-the-most-traffic-deaths/
Knapman, Chris. (December 2013). Large-scale trial of driverless cars
to begin on
public roads. The Telegraph. Retrieved from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/10484839/Largescale-trial- of-driverless-cars-to-begin-on-public-roads.html`
Sanghani, Radhika. (October 2013). Googles Driverless cars are safer
than human
drivers. The Telegraph. Retrieved from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10411238/Googlesdriverless-cars-are-safer-than-human-drivers.html
Strumpf, Dan. (Jan 2013). Liability Issues Create Potholes on the Road
to Driverless
Cars. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323854904578
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