Following the Trail of a Driverless Car

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I just saw my first driverless vehicle on our recent trip to Florida. I had to look twice over at the vehicle to make sure I was not mistaken in what I thought I saw. But sure enough, the lone passenger was the only human in the vehicle.

I probably would have missed the novel sight altogether since I was starting to doze off as my husband drove us homeward. But as we cruised along the right side of this northbound interstate, the road curved a bit and seemed to narrow a little as we came upon a bridge. Perhaps those three combined changes occurring simultaneously – the curve, the narrowed lane, and the bridge – threw the driverless car for a loop, because it unexpectedly swerved into our lane.

My husband immediately responded correctly to this lane intrusion by also moving to the right and speeding up slightly, without jerking the wheel to the right and running off the road altogether. Almost as quickly, the other driverless vehicle corrected itself as well, but not fast enough that I did not sit up and take notice.

My first response was a little nervous laugh, but when I realized that Randy had the entire occurrence well in hand, I said, “I bet the driver is on the phone. What do you think?”

Randy concurred. And it was indeed technology that had caused the minor mishap – but not a cell phone. Instead, I marveled and practically gawked at the driverless vehicle and its single passenger.

My shock was momentary because traffic moved quickly on this Florida interstate, and I soon lost sight of this technological wonder. But I wondered aloud how many of those cars are out there on American roads and how many are involved in accidents.

So, with lots of time on my hands during our multi-state drive, I began to do some internet research on these new cars. What I learned was almost more surprising than seeing a driverless car for the first time.

Several answers to the questions that fueled my online research were found on the website of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International. Founded in 1905 by two car manufacturing pioneers, Andrew Riker and Henry Ford, the organization was first known as the Society of Automobile Engineers.

With a long history of collaboration between engineers in this ever-changing field of manufacturing, SAE International strives to provide information and ideas to help shape the future of mobility. As such, the organization’s website provided lots of answers to my questions about driverless cars.

I learned that driverless (or self-driving) cars are correctly termed autonomous vehicles or AVs for a shorter, quicker name. To be honest, lots of information on this website was very technical in nature, but it was easy to understand the site’s six designated levels of vehicular automation:

Level 0: No automation.

Level 1: Driver assistance.

Level 2: Partial automation.

Level 3: Conditional automation.

Level 4: High automation.

Level 5: Full automation.

Currently, there are no Level 5 AVs in service, but over two thousand Level 4 driverless vehicles travel American roads. These commercially owned vehicles can be seen in several large cities in multiple states that allow driverless taxis, especially near major airports. But last year, a company in Texas (Aurora) launched the world’s first self-driving truck service on public roads.

With over 250 manufacturers in this industry, the AV business is projected to be a multi-trillion-dollar market by 2030, with 35,000 or more of these vehicles predicted to be in use by that time as well. That’s less than five years away, so this business and the technology behind it are growing exponentially. And according to multiple websites, the top five players in this AV market are Alphabet (Waymo), Tesla, General Motors (Cruise), Amazon (Zoox), and NVIDIA.

Each of these AV companies claims (with documented statistics) that driverless vehicles are much safer than cars driven by humans. But multiple internet queries about driverless vehicle accidents do not verify this claim. In fact, one statistic from the very first study of self-driving vehicles conducted in 2015 by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute Administration found that AVs were twice as accident-prone as standard vehicles: “Self-driving cars have 9.1 crashes per million miles driven, while regular vehicles have 4.1 crashes per million miles.”

Obviously, that study took place over ten years ago in a field of technology that is changing constantly. So much so that lawmakers are having trouble keeping up with this technology. With only 41 states even considering various pieces of AV legislation since 2012, it might be more accurate to say laws are lacking in this area, leaving a lot of leeway in the legalities surrounding the AV industry and the use of these vehicles.

For a deeper dive into legislation introduced and/or enacted by state governments in our nation, researchers can visit the website of the National Council of State Legislatures

Now, by the time I collected this legislative information during my vacation roadway research, I was more than a little overwhelmed. And even though I garnered a great deal of information about driverless cars, I gathered a whole lot more questions than answers. It was kind of like each answer I found just opened the doorway to more queries – questions that are still unanswered.

Perhaps the biggest question I have is this: If this amazing new technology is still developing and still unpredictable in terms of safety and security, then why are some of the elected officials throughout our country hesitant to pass legislation, but not hesitant to purchase stock in the top manufacturing companies of autonomous vehicles?

From what I found online in only a cursory search, dozens of members of our nation’s Congress own stock in some of the top autonomous vehicle manufacturing companies. (Granted, some of the manufacturers are so new they are not even publicly traded yet, so these lawmakers own stock in parent companies.) Even so, this info left me wondering how many state leaders have purchased stocks in these same companies.

While I did not have the time or the inclination during my vacation drive to research all 50 state legislations, I did focus on the first state to allow autonomous taxis, which is also the state with the nation’s largest number of autonomous taxis on its streets: California. And yes, according to this website, California’s lawmakers are invested in some of these AV companies, or at least their parent companies.

Of course, this one incident does not constitute a thorough investigation into state legislators who are responsible for the current and future laws concerning self-driving cars. But it did leave me pondering; it might leave others pondering as well.

Whatever the case, my recent trip to Florida and my first encounter with a driverless vehicle literally opened my eyes to this growing technology when that AV swerved into our lane. Now, I plan to keep my eyes wide open as this technology grows and advances.

And who knows! I might even see one of those driverless Aurora trucks on my next vacation adventure.

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