Self-driving cars garner varying opinions and concerns

A Cruise driverless car recently collided with a pedestrian and dragged her 20 feet in San Francisco. The company has since recalled almost a thousand of its driverless cars, planning to remedy the issue that caused the accident, according to the Washington Post.

Unfortunately, the Cruise incident is not a one-off. According to U.S. safety regulators, there have been nearly 400 crashes involving partially automated vehicles. Though there is much debate regarding the safety levels of both driverless cars and human driven cars, some individuals remain hesitant.

Jack Cossari, a sophomore at Syracuse University studying Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises, makes it clear that he will not feel safe in a driverless car. Cossari believes that the technology is not advanced enough to be deemed safe for public roads, and that it is wrong for companies to use it anyways.

“I think they are not very safe and they pose a danger to society as a whole,” said Cossari.

While Cossari stated that he has done large amounts of research on the subject of driverless cars, some individuals remain in the dark. Sara Valencia, a junior at SU studying Food Studies, admits that she is generally clueless about the concept.

“I don't really know much about them or the extent of this technology to know if they're truly safe and when they're not safe,” said Valencia.

Despite not knowing much, Valencia remains open to the idea under certain conditions. According to Valencia, she would feel much safer if she knew that she could take over the vehicle in any instance. She also explains that if the driverless car companies published their test runs on social media and allowed people to test drive the cars, she would feel much safer.

Despite maintaining his stance against driverless cars, Cossari admits that companies are working on certain safety measures that would comfort him. He explains that there are certain assists that would make driving safer, and a combination of driverless and human driving would be safest, but only once the technology develops more.

According to the Washington Post, Cruise is working on safety advancements and new measures that will prevent further incidents, as well as technology that changes the way the vehicles react to collisions.