Put your seatbelt on, autonomous vehicle (AV) is nearly there!

According to the World Health Organization, around 1.35 million people die each year because of road accidents. Between 20 and 50 million more people suffer from serious injuries, which most of them are incurables.

The primary reason behind autonomous cars is safety. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, a self-driving car is supposed to analyse and handle complicated traffic situations without any human intervention. Different prototypes are actually under development but one big challenged subsists: expand the vehicle’s broad understanding of the surrounding environment, the interaction with external obstacles and the prediction of different scenarios.

5 Potential health benefits of self-driving cars:

Safety. Approximately 90% of car crashes are caused by a human mistake. With artificial intelligence, autonomous cars could reduce significantly the number of accidents due to human error. The margin of error for self-driving car is estimated to be very low.

Environment. Through Artificial Intelligence, autonomous cars will improve fuel-efficiency and therefore reduce the pollution. Furthermore, the actual development of the technology is tested on electric vehicules.

Hospital management. Emergency rooms at the hospital could lose millions of patient a year and therefore it will allow emergency staff to dedicate more time to other patients and to be more flexible.

No stress. Traffic congestion and delays have negative impact on health. Indeed, studies have shown that it increase high blood pressure due to the stress while driving. Self-driving cars will allow people to be more relaxed and more productive during the drive.

Autonomous Aging. Hands-free autonomous driving is a great opportunity for a growing aging population, as it offers mobility without taking the risk to drive. It improves the access to care providers and people who suffer from sudden illness can be directly transported to the nearest hospital.

As an automotive enthusiast, it is difficult to see myself in an autonomous vehicle. I do not consider car as a transportation mode but more as an exciting experience, which is synonym of pleasure and freedom. However, considering all the advantages of autonomous vehicles that are related to healthcare, I think that it is necessary to pursue the development of this technology.