If you’ve been keeping up with the media, I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that no new form of technology has been more debated than autonomous vehicles. Whether you’re on board with the idea of driverless cars taking to the streets, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, thinking that these vehicles have no place on the road and will cause more harm than good—driverless cars are coming, and in some states, they’ve already landed.
At Justice Injury Law, we believe that the implementation of autonomous vehicles is a great technological advancement that has the ability to greatly reduce the number of accidents, injuries, and fatalities caused by drivers. However, we believe that changes must be made to the current vehicle safety standards before they become the industry standard—specifically speaking about how these vehicles interact with pedestrians, bicycles, and motorcycles.
THE PROBLEM
While autonomous vehicles are exceptional at recognizing other cars, trucks, buses, and other larger automobiles—which can increase roadway safety—it is the lack of ability to detect bicycles and smaller vehicles that can cause significant problems. UC Berkeley research engineer, Steven Shladover, has concluded,
“Bicycles are probably the most difficult detection problem that autonomous vehicle systems face.”
Nuno Vasconcelos, a visual computing expert from UCSD, believes this problem to be related to how autonomous vehicles learn. He states “A car is basically a big block of stuff. A bicycle has much less mass and also, there can be more variation in appearance.” To improve accuracy, many companies are implementing technology to train vehicles to detect more objects based on the images within the library. The issue here, though, is that there is a marginally larger amount of cars than there are bicycles, which doesn’t do much to help the issue at hand.
CONTACT Justice Injury Law
It’s a dangerous time for bicyclists to be out on the road. The U.S. is essentially beta testing driverless cars with real people and their well-being. Getting injured due to something out of your control is something that deserves compensation.
At Justice Injury Law, our team of staunch attorneys has been helping bicyclists injured due to other’s negligence help rebuild their lives through pursuing the maximum possible compensation for their accident.
Speak with us today 502-584-5455 over a free consultation to learn how we can help you get your life back.