The Solution

Although the three solutions listed above may help reduce car crashes due to human error there is one major problem, humans will still be operating the vehicles themselves. Even if the laws on the road are tightened, the drivers exam gets more difficult to pass or people solely rely on car services to get around there still is the factor that humans are operating the vehicles. Humans are inherently flawed, we make mistakes no matter how hard we try not to, it is in our nature. As long as there are humans on the road driving, there will be accidents caused by human error. Unlike the other possible solutions, one solution that could almost completely take human error out of the equation would be the implementation of self-driving cars. Self-driving cars have been a major topic in the automotive and IS fields in recent years with many companies taking major technological leaps forwards. Tesla, one of the frontrunners in the self driving industry already has an autopilot feature in many of its models. While this feature is only intended for use on highways and freeways, the benefits of it are already showing. Tesla reported that people using their autopilot features while on highways reported an accident every 2.87 million miles, a number significantly lower than the average of a crash every 436,000 miles(Siddiqui). Tesla doesn’t plan on stopping at automated cars on highways though, Tesla plans on rolling out fully automatic vehicles that can detect stop signs, make sharp turns and park themselves. You would be able to tell your car your location, it would come pick you up, drop you off at your destination and park itself. This would fully take the human error problem out of the equation. 

These fully automatic cars would stop accidents on a much greater scale than what was seen with Tesla’s cars on highways. It is reported that if 90 percent of cars were self-driving 4.2 million car accidents would be prevented per year. This could equate to about 21,700 deaths being prevented as well. People could feel safer in their travels without the worry of themselves or another human making a fatal accident on the road. Self-driving cars would not only prevent accidents and save lives but they would also save people billions of dollars. Like above, if 90 percent of people travelled in self driving cars around 400 billion dollars would be saved annually(Bell). Fully automated cars are becoming less and less of a thing of sci-fi and more of a reality. Due to major advances in technology by companies like Tesla and the minimal amount of regulation that currently exists  in implementing this technology into cars we could all be taking a nap or reading a book while our car drives us to work a lot sooner than we think.