Safety
Driving safety experts predict that once driverless technology has been
fully developed, traffic collisions (and resulting deaths and injuries
and costs), caused by human error, such as delayed reaction time,
tailgating, rubbernecking, and other forms of distracted or aggressive
driving should be substantially reduced. Consulting firm McKinsey &
Company estimated that widespread use of autonomous vehicles could
“eliminate 90% of all auto accidents in the United States, prevent up
to US$190 billion in damages and health-costs annually and save
thousands of lives.”
According to motorist website “TheDrive.com” operated by Time
magazine, none of the driving safety experts they were able to contact
were able to rank driving under an autopilot system at the time (2017)
as having achieved a greater level of safety than traditional fully
hands-on driving, so the degree to which these benefits asserted by
proponents will manifest in practice cannot be assessed. Confou\cite{2009}nding
factors that could reduce the net effect on safety may include
unexpected interactions between humans and partly or fully automated
vehicles, or between different types of vehicle system; complications at
the boundaries of functionality at each automation level (such as
handover when the vehicle reaches the limit of its capacity); the effect
of the bugs and flaws that inevitably occur in complex interdependent
software systems; sensor or data shortcomings; and successful compromise
by malicious interveners.