Thomas Washington

LBST 2211: Autonomous Vehicles

August 3rd, 2016

In the past three to four months, there has been a lot of buzz about a self-driving vehicle that would be presented my Elon Musk and Tesla manufacturers to lighten the load for driver. There is already technology in the Tesla Model S for example that puts the car on an “autopilot” mode that only requires, according to Tesla owner Adam Cogan, 80% of the driver’s attention rather than 100% undivided attention to road conditions. Unfortunately, this technology as you could imagine, has brought on issue the aviation community has with its infrastructure and the severity of the human’s surrounding environment. On May 7th of this year, Tesla owner Josh Brown of Canton, OH was making his way to Florida when he collided with a semi-truck and was fatally killed. The accident wasn’t brought on so much by the vehicle, even though one of its features includes anti-collision which can either brake or swerve out of the direction of contact with other vehicles, but Brown appeared to have been watching a movie while on this trip. As ridiculous as this may seem, there have been other cases, though a lot less severe, where pilots have set their planes to autopilot and had to double back to the airport drop off destination because they were distracted by their laptops. This points to Professor Missy Cummings, systems engineer and head of Duke University’s Human and Anatomy Lab, that we has humans thrive off stimulation. Without that stimulation, we check out and become complacent which in turn leaves room for error. I’d also agree because as cool as it sounds to put your car on autopilot and ride around with virtually not a care in the world, there are too many underlying factors that differentiate us driving a car on the highway vs. A 747 in the sky. In the article for example Christine Negroni explains that the world’s airspace is a highly regulated highway in the sky where there is no traffic and you don’t have to worry about another plane swerving over into your lane. Highways on the other hand are far busier and unpredictable. With that being said, I think we all see how it may be more convenient, but the human aspect is getting lost in the shuffle. With all the research companies like NuTonomy and Tesla are doing to make the safest vehicles possible, I’m sure passengers will be in “good hands”, but being 20% more perceptive of your surroundings may be more important than we think.