In speaking at various industry events, I am often asked about some of the various statistics frequently mentioned as a form of justification or rationale for the pursuit of autonomous driverless cars. At times, such stats are batted around, and it is hard to know where they came from, nor know whether they are reliable, and often these “magical” numbers are inappropriately utilized.
You might at first thought believe that autonomous cars don’t especially need any kind of numeric or quantitative justification. It would seem obvious to assume that driverless cars are going to be a boon to society, some would assert. In a qualitative manner, self-driving driverless cars will presumably expand mobility throughout society, unlocking the sometimes costly or arduous, some say friction-based, access to daily transportation. That’s enough to convince many that we are on the right path by seeking to develop and field autonomous cars.
There is a rub.
The path to achieving driverless cars is not going to be quite as easy as some might suggest. For example, society currently appears to be reactive to any kind of injury or death involving an autonomous car, and yet proponents of driverless cars are quick to point out that conventional car injuries and deaths are happening each and every day.
Why should we get upset when an autonomous car happens to do something that human-based driving is already doing?
Indeed, some are worried that if society is only going to permit some kind of roadway perfection as the standard bearer, it means that we would likely need to stop all autonomous car tryouts on our public roadways. Meanwhile, automakers and tech firms say that without public roadway tryouts, and if only confined to using proving grounds or closed tracks, and using simulations, the odds are that it will take a lot longer to arrive at autonomous cars, possibly never getting there at all.
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