On their way to Newport Beach, California, five students, four of them from Irvine High School, were killed in a car crash after striking a tree that split the car in half and caught the car on fire. Four of the students were killed instantly when thrown from the car and the other was pronounced dead at the hospital. The investigators believed that “excessive speed” was a factor in this tragedy. In September of 2012, a year before this heartbreaking incident, governor Jerry Brown signed a bill allowing the testing of Google’s self-driving cars on California roads. In 2011, Nevada was the first state to authorize autonomous cars. Following Nevada, three other states — California, Florida, and Michigan— have passed legislation concerning these cars. Along with Google, companies such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Tesla have been creating these driverless cars and/or self-driving features in their cars. Because these cars will benefit all, the use of self-driving cars should be supported in more states and countries. These self-driving cars have the potential of saving …show more content…
However, driverless cars will reduce spacing between vehicles, moving in a constant pace. Not only will this eliminate any traffic jams, a car’s fuel use can be conserved up to 20% when driving within 13 feet of the car in front, according to a 1995 Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology study. Another way it can save fuel use is by locating parking spaces quickly. According to an MIT study, about 40% of car fuel is spent looking for a parking space. This fuel use can be saved with the smart parking system of these cars. Additionally, there will be no handicap parking space necessary, so cars will have greater amount of parking spaces. Implementing these cars will, therefore, prevent any further wasting of fuel that is harming the