A common idea that is being floated for the past few years is that once autonomous, or driverless, vehicles become the norm, a majority of the vehicle crashes that occur on the roads at present can be avoided. In other words, it is being propagated that motor vehicle accidents would become a thing of the past. Whether this presumption turns out to be true or not is something that only time can tell. However, if we see some of the recent crashes involving driverless cars, it is but natural for us to question the safety of these driverless cars. A recent study now backs this.
The study was conducted by the Insurance Institute of Highway safety. Per the study, if a driverless car is set up to drive according to the driving behavior of current drivers, only about a third of all motor vehicle accidents that occur today can be avoided. In fact, the study says that even if all the cars on the road were autonomous, crashes would continue to happen, despite the autonomous cars being equipped with technology to better comprehend the surroundings.
As many people in Lincoln and the surrounding areas may agree, the safety of the occupants of a car is the motivation behind the promotion of driverless vehicles. The idea is that by replacing a human driver with a computer, the room for making an error is minimized, if not totally eliminated. However, as the IIHS study suggests, the computers would continue to be programmed by humans, which means that a room for error, irrespective of how minuscule it is, remains.
As of today, we have already started to see the odd driverless vehicle on the streets of Lincoln and other parts of Nebraska. Over the next few years, the numbers are likely to increase, and with the increase in the number of such cars, the probability of being involved in an accident with a driverless car will also increase. For victims of such crahses to make sure that they are compensated adequately, it may be a smart decision to engage an experienced attorney.