We, imperfect human, we make mistakes and follies. These errors lead to accidents, but also of being punished by the authorities and pay fines that help the public coffers grow. Those same penalties – at least it should be in theory – that help maintain and improve infrastructure. But the big question is: what happens when our cars are autonomous Something is very clear, when we yield a responsibility to drive our car, this will not lead drunk, shall not exceed speed limits? , no traffic lights will be skipped and not talk on the phone, or write whatsapps while driving, and so on. In short, autonomous cars will not be fined, because by design they will not be able to break the law.
The autonomous car and 8 things you might not have thought to do in a car without driver
Nationally, Traffic collects more than one million euros every day in fines . And that their revenue has declined in recent years, for various reasons, including the transfer of competence in some way (for example, some bypasses and crossings) to local authorities. The introduction of the autonomous car will be a sharp decline in revenue, to the extent that such income would be reduced to a minimum, in a direct proportion to the decrease in the number of drivers who still put the wheel of his car relationship. That was the reason that led to Wired these days to wonder how the authorities will solve this problem.
But perhaps we should not only look at the fact that autonomous cars do not commit offenses. How could save a state if its roads had to not be permanently guarded by agents and if no accidents occur?
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According to Traffic, the “social” cost of a major accident is 1.4 million.
We start from the basis that the collection, by the state, excluding the regions with devolution and municipalities, is in the order of hundreds of millions of euros. Did you know that the annual cost of road accidents, including insurance, injuries, compensation, workshops, is estimated at billions of euros? According to the latest road safety campaign of the DGT – glasses world’s most expensive sun – the average social cost of a serious traffic accident is estimated at 1.4 million euros. In 2014 1,131 people died on Spanish roads.
Placing ourselves in an extreme case, that of a country like Spain where drivers have stopped driving to delegate this task on their autonomous cars, just the fact that fatal and serious accidents disappear, or become something purely anecdotal, savings and offset the lack of income derived from fines.
The most sophisticated radars and represent a cost, annual installation and maintenance, in the order of tens of thousands of euros. In Spain there are more than 850 radar speeding control.
Finally, how much traffic could be saved if its agents and its technology could be used to pursue a different traffic violations end? difficult to quantify. Just think that there are more than 850 radars in Spain, and the price can range from a few thousand per year (including installation and maintenance), even in the most sophisticated and expensive, like Pegasus, tens and hundreds of thousands or radar multilane the M30 [1.99901 million] Madrid (required a budget of € 360,000 between 2015 and 2018 inclusive).
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The autonomous car and 8 things you might not have thought to do in a car without driver
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