Driverless cars are not science fiction, and they have been around for many years. Google is one of the leaders in driverless cars, and the cars have been able to successfully drive over half a million miles without an accident. However, there are major safety issues to consider with these cars such as pedestrians, passengers, and system malfunctions.

Trying to figure out how these driverless cars work with other cars, some may forget that there are pedestrians by our road ways as well. The driverless cars of today need some help from the passengers they are carrying when in work zones and around accidents. Would the car without a full time driver be able to sense a small human being walking by it and be able to stop? Probably not, even with LIDAR, a laser beam that makes 3-D models of its surroundings, there are some things that technology cannot comprehend.

If a passenger is not driving what do they do? In this day and age, they will probably turn to their cell phones for entertainment. Driverless cars of today still, once again, need assistance from their human load, and if a driver is distracted when the car needs it most, it could possibly be fatal to many. Manufacturers are trying to eleviate this problem by bringing new entertainment systems that will occupy and get the drivers attention. The entertainment feature in driverless cars could be considered a safety feature if used in the proper way.

We have all dealt with a system malfunction, most commonly in cell phones, and what says that these driverless cars will be any different. Electronics short out when exposed to water, and most of the sites that these new cars are being tested at are relatively warm and dry. Will these cars work in Chicago were they get heavy snow? Also, will they be able to comprehend what is happening when they try to go the speed limit on icy roads? New things happen all the time when driving on a regular basis in less than optimal conditions and trying to compute all these new things and storing them away for later could be to much for the system to handle.

Driverless cars could be a good use if you are traveling many miles on a deserted high way, but not in a practical everyday way. There are to many unknowns in the world to be able to put them all in one system and interact with other systems for it to be safe. Driverless cars were a thing of the future many years ago. They should stay in the pasts future not in the presents.