BUS 200-006

November 30, 2020

Emily Hajduk, James Clemente, Gavin Grecsek, Taylor Jackson

Self-Driving Cars: An Analysis

I. Intro

Self-driving cars (also known as autonomous or “driverless” cars) combine sensors and

software to control, navigate, and drive the vehicle. Through a number of technological

capabilities, these vehicles have the potential to create a safer, more equitable, and

environmentally friendly means of transportation. Although there are currently no legally

operating, fully autonomous vehicles, there exist partially autonomous vehicles containing

features from brake and lane assistance to highly-independent, self-driving prototypes. In the

future, where fully autonomous vehicles are, in theory, the standard of transportation, many

benefits are foreseen. With these benefits come disadvantages, causing ethical discussion. Self

driving technology is becoming increasingly common in modern vehicles and has the potential to

transform our transportation system.

II. Analysis

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roads would be safer

without human error, as it causes 94% of traffic accidents. It is the irresponsible people behind

the wheels of cars that create an unsafe environment. Even the short attention spans of many

(particularly younger populations who are constantly on their phones) contributes to this unsafe

environment and allows for distracted driving. Those who drive when they are not fit to (who are

tired, drunk, under the influence, etc.) also present a great threat to other drivers on the road.

The future of transportation, while still in its early stages, is automated driving for these very
reasons. This technology is steadily improving and will continue to do so. Companies such as

Tesla and Waymo have already put forth cars embodying these self-driving features, which

improve with every update they recieve. As Tesla CEO Elon Musk once stated, “Self driving

cars are the natural extension of active safety and obviously something we should do”(Elon

Musk, 2020). It can be noted that all of Tesla’s vehicles come equipped with a self driving mode

that is made for highway driving, which assists the vehicle to stay between lanes, change lanes,

and keep distance between other cars. These Tesla cars have been a massive success and

represent a step towards this self-driving movement in the transportation industry.

Self-driving cars are getting more reliable with advancements in technology and will

undoubtedly become a more dependable means of transportation as time goes on. Automated

Vehicles have been proven to improve the safety of the roads, since they will negate human

error, allow for uniform decisions, and create traffic predictably. In addition, self driving cars

would benefit the environment. If self driving cars were to be electric, then, according to the

Union of Concerned Scientists, they would produce less global warming pollution then even the

best gasoline car. Later, the Union of Concerned scientists claim “...this is a distinct advantage

EVs have over gasoline-fueled vehicles: their emissions get better over time as the grid gets

cleaner”(Reichmuth, 2020). Due to the fact that gasoline vehicles are on a fixed scale and do not

improve over time unlike EVs (electric vehicles). With electric vehicles, transportation

emissions would drop. Additionally electrified self-driving cars would enable more shared rides,

dropping emissions even further.

Self-driving cars would facilitate independence to disabled and elderly parties who are

unable to drive themselves. Today there are 49 million Americans over age 65 and 53 million

people have some form of disability. (NHTSA, 2020). In many places across the country,
employment or independent living rests on the ability to drive. With automated vehicles, these

parties would be enabled the freedom to access these employment opportunities otherwise not

accessible to them.

The police force spends a fortune on resources and manpower on enforcing traffic laws.

As self driving cars would follow traffic laws, they would not speed, run red lights, etc.. This

would eliminate the need for policing of the roads to the extent which is done today and would

allow the police to allocate more manpower and resources to more important tasks.

It is evident that self driving cars are programmed to determine the amount of risk in

every situation. Every time the self driving function is initiated, a computer inside the car

assesses every situation using sensors that are programmed for different scenarios, with that in

mind, self driving cars essentially have predetermined choices for every situation. Andy Lau

from TowardsDataScinence.com stated that “This point system calculates the value of different

scenarios, people, animals, objects, and makes quick decisions for the best course of

action”(Andy, 2020).

As incredible as self driving cars are there are downsides to them. Self driving cars would

not be accessible to everybody. With all the advanced technology in the car the price of these

vehicles would increase, leaving lower income families at a disadvantage.The next threat

presented by automated vehicles, is the high risk associated with hackers. As more and more

advanced technology is being injected into society, it is clear that this is going to increase the risk

of those who wish to manipulate the system. A hacker could do many things whether it is to steal

your data, eliminate your breaks, or track you through your GPS. There has to be precautions set

in place in order to overtake these variables, which would mean that there needs to be an

investment in serious security measures if the consumer wants to feel safe in their own car.
Whenever venturing into unknown territory there is always unintended and unknown risk. While

the goal is always to minimize the unknown it is not always possible. Sometimes there are too

many factors at play to account for everything. With that in mind the unintended consequences

of self driving cars could be devastating or could be not harmful at all.

III. Ethical Analysis

Fully autonomous (self-driving) cars, as discussed earlier, have the potential to improve

transportation safety. Simultaneously, it poses both ethical and technical challenges. It is clear

that unexpected traffic situations are often complex and require split-second decisions where

error is sometimes forgivable. Self-driving car control systems, on the other hand, would operate

on a body of research, debate and legislation in order to utilize the automated driving technology

to make these complex decisions humans now make. These actions are potentially harmful for

the car occupants, other traffic participants, and pedestrians. The design of how these vehicles

make their decision is, therefore, of utmost importance.

Decisions based on personal features of participants (such as gender, physical, or mental

constitution) are currently discussed at great lengths as unethical. Guidelines outlining the

ethical decisions made by self-driving cars would, therefore, need to be put in place. Regulations

of this nature (for ethical decision making for self-driving cars) have begun to be formulated by

the ethics commission of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure in

2017. At their beginnings, guidelines such as these would require being adapted and edited with

research, data, and time. In creating regulations such as these, human decision making is utilized

as a basis for these ethical discussions, which often are inclusive of trolley dilemmas

(representations of conflicts that emerge on a statistical level).

 When discussing acceptable “behavior” for self-driving cars, fewer lives being

endangered by a traffic accident is generally considered the best moral route of action. When

those being injured, instead of the vehicle occupants, are bystanders (as opposed to those already

involved in the traffic accident), this decision then becomes less clear. There arise discrepancies

between the action a human driver would take and the actions which would be taken by self-

driving cars. The perspective of pedestrians in comparison to the perspective of the car

occupants on the matter changes the discussion viewpoint, causing this discrepancy.

Human beings, whether a fault or not, operate on bias. Decisions are made based on race,

gender, age, and value-of-life. Most consider animals less valuable than people, as an example,

most would swerve their car into an animal rather than into a pedestrian. Younger people tend to

be valued over older people, etc. In addition to this, personality traits predict the likelihood of

one sacrificing themselves as the driver, over the lives of others involved in a traffic accident.

Actions which people consider morally right often differ from the actions they would actually

take, as concluded from Francis et al. (2016). Further, what is considered ethical for human

drivers may not be the same as what is considered ethical for self-driving cars, and the

perspective from which the situations are presented may affect how they are evaluated.

In dilemma studies based on scenarios by Faulhaber et al. (2018), participants preferred

motorists to risk the lives of adult pedestrians rather than child pedestrians, despite endangering

more lives by doing so with a tendency to protect pedestrians over car occupants. The perceived

danger to the car occupants played a role, participants being less likely to accept a car veering

toward a cliff edge than a car veering toward a parked van, however if the parked van was

replaced with pedestrians, the car occupants preferred to hit the pedestrian, the pedestrian

preferred for the car to drive off the cliff, and observers preferred the car to drive off the cliff as
well, agreeing with the pedestrians. Again we see that, with a change of perspective comes a

discrepancy in opinion on what ethical decision making involves.

In addition to perspective affecting decision making, moral decision-making is not

consistent across countries. A survey of 2.3 million people worldwide revealed variations in the

moral principles that guide driver’s decisions. Respondents were presented with 13 scenarios in

which a collision that killed some combination of passengers and pedestrians was unavoidable

and were asked to decide who they would spare. The researchers identified correlations between

social and economic factors in a country and the average opinions of its residents. People from

countries with strong government institutions, such as Finland and Japan, more often chose to hit

people who were crossing the road illegally than did respondents in nations with weaker

institutions, such as Nigeria or Pakistan. Survey participants also revealed that people often

correlated with the level of economic inequality in their culture. People from Finland (which has

a small gap between rich and poor) showed little preference for swerving one way or another

(when the choices were hitting a homeless man or an executive). On the other hand, Colombian

participants (which as a country has significant economic disparity) chose to kill the lower-status

person. (Nature, 2018).

Self-driving cars, as they become increasingly common, must begin making ethical

judgements of their own, however, settling on a universal moral code for these vehicles appears a

near impossible task. Differences in ideas of morality, discrepancies in opinion based on

situational role, and even bias based on economic status and cultural norms do not allow for a

universal standard of moral principles to be formulated. Standards for ethical decisions vary

depending on the individuals, the scenarios, and even the countries as a whole.
IV. Legal Analysis

As stated previously, self driving cars are the future, but in regards to legislation it can be very

complicated to deal with. Unlike humans, self-driving car control systems can potentially

estimate the outcome of various options within milliseconds and take actions that factor in an

extensive body of research, debate, and legislation. The overall success rate of self automated

cars stem from the multitude of tests and experiments that have been used to determine the safest

products, but with every technological advancement there are still risks involved. Due to the fact

that self automation technology is constantly changing and fairly new, little legislation has been

passed which is why a proposal needs to be made. As a basis, a Safety Precaution Law has been

drafted and is felt to be very necessary in order to allow a bright future for the self automation

industry. In detail this would mean the responsibility should still remain to the driver until we

truly establish technology that will never make a mistake. Drivers still need to be aware of the

circumstances and environment they are driving upon. With this being said, there are multiple

components that need to be considered in regards to the Safety Precaution Law.

Section 1: Under Section 1 of the Safety Precaution Law deals specifically with tests. Obviously,

the main goal is to have the most safe and trustworthy self-driving car. The only way to get there

is to have hundreds of tests and experiments. No humans will be in any of the early or beginning

stage tests whatsoever and will be substituted with manicans. The beginning and middle stages

will deal with simple drives around empty roads. Once that is done cars must be able to park

(both normally and parallel) without hitting any other objects (cones will be used). This will be

done hundreds of times before it can finally move on to the end stages. This will mostly deal

with more challenging roads that require lots of turns. If it passes, it can finally move onto the
last step where it will be tested with humans and other cars on the road. All of these stages must

be successful with little to no errors. With that said, different variations of road tests need to be

executed under different types of weather. The cars must drive smoothly and efficiently

throughout the hundreds of road tests they will endure while making sure they follow the speed

limit and the guidelines of the road. Stop light tests will also be encountered thousands of times.

If an accident were to occur, the car will immediately break and if it is bad enough, the airbags

will go off.

Section 2: Section 2 of the Safety Precaution Law deals with overriding capabilities. Even after

Stage 1 (the testing stage) there is still the small possibility of accidents occuring. There is a

finite amount of possibilities when it comes to a situation that would need a human overide. The

technology in self driving cars is much smarter and faster in terms of reaction time, but it is still

not perfect due to the fact that humans created it. One has to also understand that not everyone

has a self driving car so other people can still cause an accident themselves. There can also be

cases where the environment itself harms the car (an object falling down, ice on the road,etc) so

as you can see, even with all of those tests nothing is truly perfect. Many things can go wrong

which is why the person in the car needs to be able to take over the car at any time. In depth, if

any person were to touch the wheel, accelerator, or break the car, it should allow that person to

be in control.

Section 3: Under Section 3 of the Safety Precaution Law, it can be made clear that there are

certain responsibilities that both the consumer and producer must uphold to a certain degree. The

responsibilities that a producer must assume before distributing their products must include, but
not be limited to, a formal document that demonstrates the purposes and utilizations of the self-

automated functions before they are exercised. It can also be evaluated that under Section 1 of

the Safety Precaution Law, it is stated that there needs to be a written guarantee from the

manufacturer that each vehicle produced has no faulty mechanisms. This section of the law may

work in favor of the manufacturer to a certain extent, but once the vehicle is in the hands of the

consumer, it is at the driver's discretion to follow the rules set by the manufacturer. This Section

of law must include that, in addition to following rules mandated by the manufacturer,

consumers need to follow the laws of the road which comprise of being in the driver's seat at all

times, using the seatbelt properly, elude from driving under the influence, and avoid from

drowsing off while the self-automation function is being utilized. It must be stated that any

driver, utilizing the self-automation feature, must recognize the programming was created by

humans and therefore the self-driving function should not be taken advantage of. That being said,

there are still too many unknowns when it comes to self-automation, which therefore constitutes

that the self-driving function, in itself, should only be used in accordance with the will of the

driver, as stated in Section 2.

Section 4:The future of autonomous driving is now, but there are still many obscure obstacles

that the automated car industry has to overcome before it can be fully admitted that the function

is totally autonomous. It is heavily debated that there will never be a totally autonomous vehicle

due to the fact that as technological advancements surpass legislative standards, there is still the

factor that self-driving cars are limited to a broad set of parameters. In order to achieve fully

autonomous functionality, this section of law will subsidize the self-autonomous industry with a

grant of over 2 Trillion US Dollars which will be invested into new technologies. This
technology includes the research and development of an electromagnetic mechanism, known as

inductive charging, that can be implemented on every road, highway, and infrastructure in

America. This program initiative sparks to be the first investment into fully autonomous driving

by the United States government and will prove to be very costly, but worth every penny.

According to the MIT Technology Review, this technology is already being tested in France and

Israel, and although costly, it is apparent that it is very safe and feasible. The goal is to achieve

fully autonomous driving by the year 2100, in order to make driving on the road completely safe

and effortless.

V. Conclusion

Self driving cars have the power to change the transportation industry. While it seems

frightening to give up control to a machine, self-driving cars have many benefits to society.

These vehicles would be a more dependable and efficient mode of transportation, and would

allow for safer roads by means such as eliminating driving under the influence and distracted

driving. These cars would benefit the environment through fewer emissions, as well as make

traffic prediction and policing more effective. While it may be off-putting to some, there is a

potential future for fully automated vehicles to be the standard on the road. The abilities of self-

driving technology leads to discussion on the ethical decision-making process of these vehicles.

Self-driving cars, as they become increasingly common, must make ethical judgements of their

own. Differences in ideas of morality, discrepancies in opinion based on situational role, and

even bias based on economic status and cultural norms do not allow for an easy compromise and

formulation of a universal standard of moral principles. These topics are frequently discussed,

debated, explored, and analyzed as data and time allows with the newer innovative software,

which would allow for fully autonomous vehicles to become the basis of modern transportation.
This ethical debate is of extreme importance when creating and implementing legal parameters

to these vehicles. No matter how beneficial these machines are, they still require legal

parameters to allow for just use. Even though these cars utilize software, this software is

designed by humans, therefore, human error would need to be regulated. These legal parameters

have and will continue to grow with the development and implementation of self-driving cars, as

will the transportation industry through these technological advancements.

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