Self-Driving Cars: A thought or a reality?

Google and Apple seem to run the market in technology breakthroughs. It’s an ongoing battle where you support one or the other, and are loyal to the side that you choose. I for the record am most definitely a Mac and Apple supporter. However, I can say that Google seems to be the more innovative of the two, constantly breaking barriers and testing new boundaries. Take self-driving cars for example. They are a lot closer than some might think, and I predict that they will be a common part of our market in the next decade.

I remember as a kid, I would watch movies with cars that flew and drove themselves, and I would think to myself that by the year 2000 all of that would be a reality. Here we are 16 years later, not quite there yet, but the testing stages are making it more and more likely. So the overall question is why haven’t they become so?

First off, Google openly admits that the self-driving car is getting better, but still needs some work. The government has also laid down some tight regulations regarding how the self-driving cars can operate, for example, there has to always be a passenger/operator to ensure that the car can be controlled in emergency or defect.

The next issue is that there does seem to be a lot of resistance and lack of support for the concept of the self-driving car. It puts a lot of negative attention on the car itself, and the potential of it progressing is stunted. That makes sense, the car itself had over 69 issues in 2015, in which at least 10 would have resulted in a crash. I’m a bad driver. Literally, I’m a terrible driver. My car is known as the Sanchez joy-ride of death…however; I’ve not been in an accident in over seven years. 10 would-have-been accidents are a lot.

So what does this all mean?  To me this means that we are growing with a beautiful idea that can hopefully make the world, or at the least our roadways, a hell of a lot safer. If we replaced all of our drivers with programmed self-driving vehicles, and just sat back, I feel that this would reduce our distracted drivers and accidents. The concept and timing is beautiful, but the potential and results are so much more beautiful.

I would love to see this take drive. See what I did there? Pun was definitely intended. I also would put my money on the thought that by 2020, we will see these vehicles taking our roadways nationwide, and not just in trial mode.

Share your thoughts with me on Twitter @thereal_jsanch, and if these cars make more headlines, maybe I’ll share tweets in a follow up.