Driverless Car Fatalities – Our Reader Suggestions
24 May 2012 Posted By matthewn
In my post - Driverless Car Fatalities – What Will They Look Like? I called for reader suggestions on how people will either die in or at the hands of Driverless Cars. We received some great comments. Here’s the results! Please add your thoughts to the post if you can think of any more.
- The Boy Dressed As A Chimp
Paul Godsmark came up with this ingenious scenario:
How about this though – a chimp escapes from the zoo runs across a road from behind a building and the autonome hits it – lesson: try and avoid chimp if possible.
Next day – boy and pet chimp run into the road from behind a building and a collision is unavoidable – you or I would naturally hit the chimp rather than the boy(?) – the autonome gets programmed to hit chimps rather than humans.
Next day – a kid leaves a costume (fancy dress to us Brits) party in his chimp suit and runs across the road with a friend………… you guessed it, autonome hits the unlucky boy in the chimp suit.
The moral of this story – take any costumes off before crossing the road!
- Being Rear-Ended
Can’t believe I didn’t think of this one.
Gabriel Sniman:
Rear-end collision most likely… person in car behind autonomous vehicle not paying attention, either texting, on phone, drunk, seizure, speeder, etc…
This is despite rear-end collision avoidance:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qECD4GivF_8
Not even the best technology can stop idiots.
- When The Car Has No Choice
Paul Godsmark again:
The autonome is at high speed on a road with a single lane in each direction. A mini-van coming the other way, packed full of people has a tyre (tire for North Americans!) blow-out and swerves into the autonomes path. If the autonome cannot avoid a collision what should it do? Should it swerve violently to avoid hitting the mini-van, but then possibly kill the occupant. Or should it risk many more lives by accepting a collsion with the mini-van?
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