Research paper. Autonomous vehicles. The objective of this essay is to write and support an argument

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Autonomous vehicles
This essay highlights the social dilemma faced by the programmers of the autonomous vehicles in relation to safety issues. The problems resulting from the use of cars have prompted the need to change how transport is managed and apply ICT and intelligent systems to manage the transport system. One of the solutions is smart transportation which is based on a balance of taxonomy, regulation, and corporation. One of the components of intelligent transportation is driverless cars. These vehicles are expected to operate within cooperative networks, communicate with each other, consider the context and conditions and relieve the driver of the effort. The cars have the potential to reduce traffic congestion, accidents, fuel, and consumption. However, they have to choose between two evils. The vehicles have to decide whether to run over pedestrians and save the passengers or to sacrifice themselves and the occupants and save the pedestrians. Hence, when programming decision-making based on moral principles, the manufacturers have to choose between self-interest and the public good.
The idea of driverless cars came to light in 2007 when scientific advances allowed teams to compete in the DARPA Challenge (Bonnefon et al. 1). The event provided a real test for autonomous vehicles to operate in urban settings. Since then, companies like Google, Volvo, GM, Ford, Tesla, and many others have invested in research to build fully driverless cars. It is clear that the automobile industry will change more drastically in the next 20 years that it has in the last 100 years (Muoio 1). For a long time, cars have remained reasonably simple with a combination of human and mechanics. However, the introduction of GPS technology, high definition cameras and, infrared and radar scanning have resulted in a game changer car. The combination of these technologies has enabled the development of advanced cars which are capable of operating even within the cities.
It is fascinating to imagine how the world will look like if all the cars are fully automated. Firstly, traffic accidents will reduce drastically. It would be much safer to use the roads. Road accidents are the eighth leading cause of death in the world today (Norheim et al. 243). About 90% to 95% of these accidents are due to human error like drunk driving and distraction (Bener et al. 500). Further, the economic cost of road accidents is high. The absence of human error while driving would lead to much safer journeys. Once driverless cars become commonplace in the streets, it is expected that accidents will reduce by about 90% (Chan 213). Additionally, autonomous vehicles will reduce traffic congestion. Automated vehicles can eliminate stop-and-go waves which result from human driving behavior. Under normal conditions, human drivers create the stop-and-go traffic even where there are no bottlenecks and other disruptions. The ability of the autonomous vehicles to pack closer together would allow more cars on the road and short traffic times. In addition, the vehicles would increase lane capacity and increase expressway travel speeds by more than 20%. The vehicles could also lead to a higher vehicle throughput rate on the existing roads.