Researchers Suggest Driverless Cars May Avert Accidents: How Is That Possible?
Jun 24, 2014
Austin Personal Injury Lawyers – Perlmutter & Schuelke, LLP
Austin, TX (Law Firm Newswire) June 24, 2014 – A driverless car with a technological glitch is an accident waiting to happen.
“Driverless cars have become even more of a technological goal over the past few years,” says Austin injury lawyer, Brooks Schuelke. “The lightening rod that drew even more people to take up the call for this kind of technology was the death of a young lady by the name of Marina Keegan, a Yale graduate, who died in a car accident five days after she graduated. The driver, her boyfriend, fell asleep at the wheel. Human error cost the life of a promising writer.”
Rather than human drivers, prone to committing errors, technology advocates suggest a driverless car would solve the problem. Human error, such as falling asleep, texting while driving, and other factors, while behind the wheel of a vehicle accounts for more than 90 percent of collisions says the Tri-Level Study of the Causes of Traffic Accidents prepared for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“Car makers are already building in technology that may save lives that is designed to detect and prevent crashes. Futurists see the highways populated by fully driverless vehicles, removing human error as a factor in causing accidents. However, no one has mentioned a technological error that may cause an accident. In reality, there is no such thing as a completely safe driver or a completely safe driverless car,” Schuelke suggests.
When technology fails, and it does, accidents happen. The real question becomes not so much what happens if technology fails to prevent accidents, but what would happen if that were possible, to insurance companies, wreckers and automobile repair shops, etc. Saving lives may have unintended consequences, which creates many levels of complex conundrums.
Potential life-saving techo-inventions are seen every day and include lane-drifting alarms, a vibrating seat that alerts the driver to danger, rearview cameras, self-parking cars, and suggested prototypes for tracking head and eye movements and the driver’s focus. Technology is proliferating at a rapid rate and soon we may have driverless cars. However, that may not solve the problem of collisions if something goes wrong with the onboard computers. Driverless cars do not rule out defective manufacturing, negligence in assembling the total computerized product or a carmaker that knowingly puts a flawed vehicle on the road.
“Technology or no technology, experienced attorneys are still the voice of those who end up in accidents and sustain serious injuries. Never hesitate to contact a lawyer if you have been involved in a car accident as the result of someone else’s negligence,” adds Schuelke.
Learn more at http://www.civtrial.com
Perlmutter & Schuelke, LLP
206 East 9th Street, Ste. 1511
Austin, TX 78701
Call (512) 476-4944
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