6 autonomous driving safety tips for beginners

Continuous technological advancements have allowed self-driving cars to come to fruition. What was once merely a dream of the future in the past, has now become commercially available to all. 

The utilization of these said vehicles is what’s commonly referred to as autonomous or automated driving. Despite the big leaps forward with modern-day inventions such as these, car accidents remain a leading cause of death in many countries around the globe. 

Safety should naturally be the priority of all drivers, no matter the vehicle in question. With that in mind, listed below are six tips that can help beginners and veterans alike drive autonomous vehicles safely.

1. Avoid Overreliance On The System

Although autonomous cars are designed to drive themselves, there remain several instances on the road where human cognition is still necessary and should be prioritized. 

Driverless systems today are dependable but have yet to fully supersede a human’s take on the wheel, after all. With a long way to go before being able to do so, one should definitely avoid being over-reliant and over-confident in the system that powers autonomous car drives. 

For more information on driverless systems, you can visit this article. All in all, being lax while driving, no matter what type of vehicle is used, can put the well-being of all passengers inside in danger.

2. Keep Your Vehicle’s Battery In Constant Check

Autonomous cars are able to shift gears, follow GPS systems, and even use brakes. Aside from the wide array of driver tasks they’re able to do, they can even predict traffic and pick up accidents quicker than a human would be able to. But as convenient as all that is, self-driving cars have to mostly rely on electricity as their power source. 

An electric car differs from regular gas-powered vehicles in many ways, and in some cases, electric cars can be more sensitive. They require more careful attention, especially with regard to the battery that powers them. Taking care of autonomous vehicles’ batteries and properly charging them is vital in ensuring a safe drive with them.

3. Remain Focused

At the end of the day, autonomous driving is still driving. As car crash accidents remain at an all-time high, it’s imperative that the person in the driver’s seat remains focused at all times. The artificial intelligence (AI) technology backing driverless vehicles today cannot fully and perfectly replicate an actual human driving experience just yet. 

Although that could eventually be a possibility in the future, remaining focused while taking your driverless car for a drive is still vital in ensuring safe riding trips.

Smart cars with automatic sensor driving on the green road with wireless connection

4. Stay Within The Speeding Limits

Speeding is referred to as the act of driving at high speeds, typically past the legal speed limit. To help ensure the safety of drivers, most places will have a speed limit that one will need to abide by.

Although autonomous driving can certainly smoothen a driver’s experience, they may not always be equipped to know all the speed limits on each road. In the end, it’s a human’s responsibility to ascertain that their self-driving vehicles remain within speeding limits. 

5. Ensure Your Car’s Cybersecurity Too

As automated vehicles often run on a computer-controlled system, securing your data becomes all the more crucial in this instance. Because a car like this operates with data secured online, hackers with bad intentions may eventually surface. 

An autonomous car’s database may contain quite a lot of sensitive information that cyberterrorists can target. Overall, besides constantly guarding your computer’s security, your autonomous car’s system would need guarding too now. 

6. Prioritize Human Judgement

Self-driving cars make use of several technologies that can, to a certain extent, predict some road factors that humans cannot. And although they can possibly react faster to several critical instances, human judgment remains more dependable for now. 

While the margin of human error can be larger, AI today has yet to completely supplant human judgment on the road in the end. It would, thus, do one well to prioritize one’s judgment over that of a vehicle when driving.

Bottomline

As interest in driverless cars continues to grow, so does the scepticism surrounding the safety of those cars. Self-driving cars today are meant to supplement the driving experience rather than completely replace it. It has yet to evolve to the level of being completely and absolutely reliable on its own, given all the various road factors that are involved in each drive.

Autonomous driving can very well be the future of all vehicles, and may even be a staple in cars moving forward. But for now, driving one safely with the help of the above-mentioned tips remains the main priority.

The post 6 autonomous driving safety tips for beginners appeared first on Paddock Magazine.