Tamara Ribbers
Reduced alertness of truck drivers is the main cause for truck accidents. Other causes are blowouts, file end collision, and haziness around lanes. Every year there is an average of 1000 accidents with trucks within the Netherlands including 23 deaths and 105 serious injured victims (Onderzoeksraad voor veiligheid, 2012).
What do you think about implementing some extra help in trucks? For me, it sounds great to have a kind of automatic pilot in trucks. Well, this already exists. In Germany, the first almost independent driving truck made a trial trip on the highway. Aboard there is a so called ‘highway pilot’ which uses a radar, camera’s and adaptive cruise control. With this, the truck could drive independently. However, the responsibility is the drivers, he or she must monitor the traffic continuously, especially in bad weather circumstances . In contrast of the AV cars, there is no ethic problem about who can be hold responsible, because this is still the driver. What is also nice is that this system can be easily added in existing trucks and not a whole truck has to be replaced, which spares money. Self-driving trucks will be much safer, because a computer system is always awake and will never be tired and it also will not be distracted (Kraaijvanger, 2015).
When I’m driving I notice a lot of people pull up, accelerate and brake irregularly. This is not only annoying for me when I’m driving because I cannot forecast the movements of the other drivers, but it is also bad for the environment. Also some people don’t switch the poker fast enough which costs more fuel. In my view, it seems logical that if this is all automatic, fuel and carbon dioxide emissions will be less. Being sustainable is important to care for our world and because we have lots of emissions out of cars and trucks, it seems an important thing to think about. According to Kraaijvanger (2015), the ‘highway pilot’ system in trucks spares fuel and ensures less carbon dioxide emissions, because the system brakes, accelerates and changes the acceleration efficiently.
However, some ethical consequences exist. Because these trucks brakes automatically, misuse can be provoked. If people know the truck breaks automatically, they can cut off road in front of the truck because they know it is programmed to stop automatically. Also there could be a possibility that the truck will have an emergency stop whereby the driver scares. Another consequence can be that, just because the system is a program, it can be hacked. People can hack the program to cause more accidents, which will make this system less safe. This is why these programs must be inscrutable before this can be applied on the market.
Some people don’t want changes and are afraid for these kind of technologies. I think these technologies make the world better, safer and more sustainable. When this technique is developed better, it can even be applied in cars. I say: let’s go for it!
Sources
Onderzoeksraad voor veiligheid (2012, 29 November). Persbericht. Consulted at the 11th of October 2015, Retrieved from http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/nl/onderzoek/1007/vrachtwagenongevallen-op-snelwegen
Kraaijvanger (2015). Zelfrijdende vrachtwagen gaat de Autobahn op. Consulted at the 11th of October 2015, Retrieved from http://www.scientias.nl/zelfrijdende-vrachtwagen-gaat-de-autobahn-op/