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Self-driving cars learning unsafe habits from human drivers

On Behalf of | Apr 6, 2018 | Motor Vehicle Accidents

Many New York drivers have safety concerns about sharing the roads with self-driving vehicles. Among the safety risks involved in programming driverless vehicles is the fact that self-driving cars are learning dangerous driving habits from the humans who program them.

An associate professor of computer science at Arizona State University shares these concerns. He believes that the teams developing driverless cars focus too heavily on creating an experience like that of a human-driven vehicle. To create such an experience, the development teams allow automated vehicles to learn to drive from human drivers. The professor claims that this also allows vehicles to learn unsafe driving habits.

A pedestrian accident in Arizona may have resulted from human influence on driverless cars. An automated vehicle struck a woman as she crossed an unlit area of roadway. The woman later died from her injuries. The ASU computer science professor says that the self-driving car proceeded at a speed that was unsafe for the conditions, likely because ambient light and the car’s headlights did not illuminate the woman until it was too late to brake safely. He says that in conditions with low visibility, driverless cars should not drive as a human would but should proceed with more caution.

Personal injury attorneys who represent victims of driverless car accidents may seek damages from several different defendants, such as the company that owns and operates the car and the company that programmed it. When an accident victim makes a claim of negligence or wrongful death against multiple parties, they might be able to collect higher amounts of compensation to pay for their medical bills, rehabilitation and other expenses.

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