It is time to tell it like it is. Self driving cars are practically useless. They are dangerously useless too. I have looked at the top ten major reasons they are useless and the case to be made is strong. I personally believe self driving cars are a scam, and we will see that they are so useless that you have to consider the scam angle when deciding where to put your money. The government should consider that as well. It is difficult to see how driverless cars are any more than a money grab and a con of immense magnitude.

An example of this is the first reason why self driving cars are a problem:

1. They run red lights and when they do it is blamed on the driver for not taking over. But clearly when a driver has to take over at a critical juncture, it is much safer for the driver to always be attentive. The driver cannot always be attentive when the car is doing the driving. It is human nature to not be attentive. This is the fatal flaw of self driving cars, that drivers must intercept critical mistakes the cars make. If you have to be more alert driving a self driving car than when driving a manually driven car what on earth is the self driving car good for? Nothing, it is good for nothing.

Here are the levels of self driving cars. Level one and up are quite dangerous. Level three is asking for termination of the driver’s life, in my opinion. And yet some exist like the Volvo S60 pictured below. Levels 4 and 5 cannot ever be attained based on the 10 reasons given in this article.

 

Volvo Level 3 S60 by Mariordo (Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz)

 

SAE automated vehicle classifications from the Wikipedia article above are abreviated:

  • Level 0: Automated system has no vehicle control, but may issue warnings.
  • Level 1: Driver must be ready to take control at any time.
  • Level 2: The driver is obliged to detect objects and events and respond if the automated system fails to respond properly. 
  • Level 3: Within known, limited environments (such as freeways), the driver can safely turn their attention away from driving tasks, but must still be prepared to take control when needed.
  • Level 4: As level 3, but no driver attention is required. Outside the limited environment the vehicle must be able to enter a safe fallback mode – i.e. park the car – if the driver does not retake control
  • Level 5: Other than setting the destination and starting the system, no human intervention is required.