Jersey City Self-Driving Vehicle Accident Lawyers

The biggest issue is that self-driving cars don’t have common sense or reasoning skills. When faced with unexpected situations, like a deer darting onto the road or another car swerving, a self-driving vehicle doesn’t know what to do because it hasn’t been programmed for that situation.

If a ball rolls onto a street, humans know to watch for children chasing after it. A computer doesn’t. All of this leads to preventable accidents.

Technology hasn’t yet been able to manufacture common sense into self-driving cars or computers in general. This makes it necessary to code every possible scenario, which is essentially impossible.

Driverless vehicles also can’t anticipate situations like humans can. Instead, they drive from moment to moment.

Another issue is that self-driving cars don’t see like humans do. Their computer vision systems can be fooled in ways that human eyes can’t. Minor changes to a speed limit sign, for example, have prompted self-driving cars to see 35 mph as 85 mph.  

Recently, hackers tricked a driverless car into changing lanes by using brightly colored tape to create a fake lane. A human behind the wheel wouldn’t have been fooled by either one of these situations.

Although those are extreme cases, there are other issues that can stem from a self-driving vehicle not seeing correctly. Some drivers have reported that self-driving cars register shadows as real objects. In one accident that led to a pedestrian death, the car registered the person first as a vehicle and then as a bicycle.

There are no fully automated and entirely self-driving cars available yet. By advertising them as self-driving, companies encourage people to act more like passive passengers instead of being ready to take over when there’s a problem.

As with other cars, the majority of accidents that occur in self-driving options are a result of driver distraction.

One of the most worrying aspects of driverless cars is that they’re on the road with technology that doesn’t work well. Active driving assistance systems that combine braking, acceleration, and steering often disengage without any warning. This requires the driver to immediately take control of the car.

If the driver is distracted, issues like this could end in an accident. Autopilot navigational errors can cause crashes, too.

Self-driving cars rely on lithium-ion batteries, which are highly combustible. If these batteries catch fire, they can reach up to 3,632 degrees Fahrenheit. Anyone who tries to douse the fire out with water can cause a hydrogen gas explosion.

If a collision damages a battery, there’s the risk of thermal runaway, which is characterized by an uncontrolled increase in pressure and temperature. That could lead to the release of projectiles and toxic gases.

These cars are packed full of technologies ranging from GPS, remote controls, and Bluetooth to Wi-Fi, power accessories, and more. As such, drivers can be exposed to high amounts of electromagnetic field radiation.

Prolonged exposure to electromagnetic field radiation can lead to health issues. These can include headaches, migraines, sleeping issues, and high blood pressure.

Drivers who rely on self-driving cars could lose some of their basic driving skills. As a result, they could have slower reaction times when there’s an emergency that requires them to take over.

There are some regulations in place that govern self-driving vehicles, but many more need to be added to make the roads safer. In the meantime, self-driving car manufacturers have very few guidelines to follow when bringing a car to market.

There are even ways for manufacturers to skip some federal crash safety requirements in cars that were not designed to carry people. This doesn’t address the fact that these cars could share the road with other vehicles that do have human drivers and passengers.

Currently, there are 21 states with laws allowing autonomous vehicles, and many more are researching the laws they need to enact to make that happen. The states that allow full deployment of these vehicles also have insurance laws in place.

Another danger that self-driving cars pose is the worry of them being targeted for cyberattacks. In a planned test scenario, hackers attempted to hack into a Jeep and succeeded. They forced it to stop on a highway while traveling at 70 mph.