Autonomous Vehicles: Enhancing Safety on the Roads

Driver assistance technology, which can save lives and avoid injuries, is standard on many modern cars. While some devices can actively prevent an accident, others only warn drivers of impending collisions. We may anticipate even bigger advancements in road safety as automotive technology progresses, including driver-aid technologies and completely automated driving systems.

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Current road safety issues

Road traffic crashes result in the deaths of approximately 1.19 million people around the world each year and leave between 20 and 50 million people with non-fatal injuries. More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5–29. Yet two-thirds of road traffic fatalities occur among people of working age (18–59 years). Nine in 10 fatalities on the roads occur in low- and middle-income countries, even though these countries have around 60% of the world’s vehicles.

According to a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 94% of motor vehicle accidents are caused by driver error, with improper lookout, excessive speed, and inattention being the most common factors. Vehicle safety has improved, yet driving behavior among people has not changed for the better. Between 2020 and 2021, there was a 16% increase in traffic crashes, from 5.25 million to 6.10 million incidents. In 2021, there were almost 43,000 fatalities on American roads due to traffic crashes, a 10% rise in fatalities overall.

How autonomous vehicles work

Automakers and tech businesses both have created self-driving systems in recent years. While every system is unique, the majority of autonomous driving technologies use a variety of sensors to build and maintain an internal map of the vehicle’s surroundings. To plot a route and manage the vehicle’s brakes, steering, and acceleration, the software uses this data. Furthermore, self-driving cars can be “connected,” which allows them to speak with other automobiles and infrastructure, such as sophisticated traffic signals.

Safety features of autonomous vehicles

The safety of autonomous cars is attributed to their advanced safety features, which continue to be implemented and improved. To avoid collisions with other cars and pedestrians, emergency braking is essential. This technology, which is intended to prevent collisions involving both moving and stationary objects, is a crucial component of autonomous automobile safety. Several steps are involved in emergency braking:

Road observation: Observation is conducted using cameras, radar, or Lidar sensors.
Threat detection: These sensors’ data determine how long items will take to reach.

Alerts: The driver receives audiovisual alerts if there is a threat.
Automatic Braking: The brakes will engage automatically if the driver doesn’t react.

The automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems come in three primary types:

Forward Collision Warning: Warns the driver and passengers when it senses a potential collision.

Dynamic Brake Support: Provides braking assistance and alerts the driver.
Crash imminent braking: When a crash is imminent, the vehicle will automatically stop.

Minimization of human faults

Driver error is responsible for around 94% of motor vehicle crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey. The likelihood of such mistakes is decreased by the collision prevention technologies currently in use, especially automated emergency braking. Although there is great potential for these technologies to prevent collisions, many more incidents are anticipated to be avoided by highly autonomous vehicles (AVs).

Legislators and the general public believe that Level 5 autonomous cars, which run entirely on human power, will almost certainly reduce the number of collisions. Distractions, inattention, and impairments are absent from AVs, and their perception is unrestricted by human limitations. However because AV conduct is engineered to resemble idealized human driving behavior, there are questions about how decision-making will be handled, particularly when it comes to speed and traffic restrictions.

Sensing, predicting, planning, determining, and executing are the categories into which the study divides safe vehicle operations. For AVs to stop crashes, they must be excellent in these capacities. When an autonomous vehicle (AV) is built correctly, it should be able to detect potential threats, plan safe routes, drive defensively, and manage the vehicle well.

Prospects

While Tesla believes that its fully autonomous driving system will be at least ten times safer than human drivers, Waymo promises to create the “world’s most experienced driver.” Based on available data, it may be inferred that human error accounts for 90% of the 1.3 million road fatalities and millions of injuries that occur each year. With its numerous cameras and quick reflexes, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are predicted to drastically lower the number of collisions and fatalities.

Even though Tesla’s Autopilot has occasionally been involved in well-publicized accidents, the system already improves safety. AVs improve overall safety by sharing their instantaneous information with all similar vehicles, and they learn from mistakes more quickly than humans. Given that automated driving has the potential to cause fewer accidents than human driving, the German ethics council is in favor of it.

This article discusses the safety features of self-driving cars as well as how autonomous vehicles can ensure current road safety.

References and further readings

Automated Vehicles for Safety | NHTSA (no date). https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/automated-vehicles-safety#:~:text=What%20are%20the%20safety%20benefits,prevent%20injuries%2C%20and%20save%20lives.

Huntington, S. (2018) ‘What are the safety features in autonomous cars? | Automotive IQ,’ Automotive IQ, 23 January. https://www.automotive-iq.com/autonomous-drive/articles/what-are-safety-features-autonomous-cars.