The good and bads of autonomous vehicles

Driver-less Roads

Autonomous vehicles are something that many people have been talking about recently.  Just today, Volvo released their plan to have driver-less vehicles on Swedish roads by 2017.  This is something that has been worked on by many companies and many people would really like to see move forward.  Google is one of these large companies pushing to have autonomous vehicles.  I have very mixed feelings about whether or not this is a good idea.


There are many benefits to have driver-less vehicles.  This in theory and what we have seen from demos, will help prevent accidents.  This is something that is a huge issue with roads and people driving their own cars.  Even just this last week we had a celebrity death due to a car crash.  Driver-less cars will help prevent many accidents, and keep drivers and pedestrians safe.


One of the downfalls of this idea however is that for many people, myself included, driving is a luxury.  I personally love to drive, and love investing time into my vehicle.  It is a project to me, and driving a release of stress, something fun to do, and something that I do competitively on a track.  Not only does driver-less vehicles take away from this, but I personally feel like it could be an early issue when adoption is low.

When there are not many autonomous vehicles on roads, what will happen with traffic?  I personally feel as if this could make traffic worse.  People generally travel over the speed limit, especially in the left lane, and people get where they need quicker.  There are many issues that need to be clarified before these vehicles are put into circulation.  Will they be in the left lane of roads?  Will they only be in the right lane?

I feel as if autonomous cars are a great idea, but will have a low adoption rate early, and could be problematic at first.