You and your family are traveling along the interstate in a mid-distance driving trance. The radio hums softly and the children make small noises as they play with their electronic gadgets. The cruise control and lane assist seem to do most of the work for you, but you aren’t about to pretend the car can safely drive itself, so you diligently keep your hands on the wheel and two eyes on the road.
Suddenly, a small bag blows out of the truck’s bed in front of you and flutters near as you approach, but your car slams on the brakes without any warning or directive from you. This brings the car to an immediate and uncomfortable stop, causing the vehicle behind you to squarely rear-end you. It turns out that the bag covered one of the sensors used to detect stationary objects and the vehicle’s autopilot system initiated the brakes.
Technology has been a double-edged sword since, well, double-edge swords. For example, it constantly saves us from making glaring errors with spell check, but then it also autocorrects and makes errors of its own. Likewise, it keeps pilots from making small landing errors, but when problems do arise, the pilots then don’t have adequate experience to deal with it. New technology may cause more accidents, but it may also bring new kinds of variables to who causes the accidents and how they occur.
As scary as some of this sounds, these advancements are important to saving lives, but as with any new technology or new use of old technology, accidents and unforeseen problems will arise. When these accidents lead to personal injury, property damage, or death, you should know everything you can about the recent history of accidents due to new autopilot programs and other driver-assistance technologies.
There have been accidents due to airplane, commercial shipping, private vehicle, aerial drone, and even robotic vacuum technologies. Ship crews have run into bridges and onto sand shoals because they were paying too much attention to other things, assuming that the autopilot would be fine on its own. The quality of these devices combined with a focus on profit has pushed some companies and captains to use faster—but more dangerous routes—to reach their destinations.
We now have to deal with cell phones, GPS units, climate controls, FM and satellite radios, dashboard TVs, reverse-cams, and other technologies while trying to stay on the road. Every accident happens fast. Over reliance on technology can lead to overstimulation and driver distraction. Distraction in a half-ton machine traveling at sixty miles per hour is very deadly.
If you have been injured in an accident and you think it may have something to do with human error mixed with a dependence on technology, you deserve to know the truth. Please contact an attorney from Denena Points, PC to find out if you are owed financial compensation.
Give us a call at 713-807-9500 or contact us online to schedule your free, no-obligation consultation.
