A 12-hour road trip with a father and his
14-year-old daughter — she’s just beginning to
learn the ways of the road when her dad asks her
to take the wheel for a few miles. She hops into the
driver’s seat, adjusts the mirrors and steps on the
gas. She’s coasting alone when the car speeds up
automatically. She’s scared — did she lose control
of the car?

It turns out her father set up the automatic
driver system. She hadn’t even been driving at
all. In this self-driving car instance, everyone
was safe and no complications occurred, but
with the increased reliance of automatic vehicles
(AVs) comes a decrease in responsibility for road
safety, resulting in dangerous accidents with fatal
injuries.

Around 7.5% of AV accidents in 2025 ended in
injury, and a little more than 1% have resulted in
deaths, according to Craft Law Firm. Several of the
accidents weren’t even the automatic car systems’
fault. UnderstandingAI said Waymo cars, a self-
driving car company, were involved in 45 crashes
over a six-month period. Many were not Waymo’s
fault but are AVs worth it?

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation would
answer yes as they shared benefits of AVs, such
as reduced human driving errors, decreased
traffic congestion, lowered greenhouse gases and
increased autonomy to people with disabilities.

They also mention the economic benefits of car-
sharing and an increase in demand for electric
vehicles minimizing costs for drivers.
The trusting humans in the driverless cars
can still become victims of high-risk injury and
death. Waymo claims to have driven 127 million
rider-only miles without a human driver as of
September 2025.

These driverless cars allow for the passengers
to do other things while on the road. Whether
someone is traveling for work and needs to write
emails on the road or a rider is putting on makeup
on the way to a gala, they are paying the road no
attention — they aren’t even near the steering
wheel to take over in an emergency. When another
vehicle loses control and runs into them or there
is an icy patch in the road that the system can’t
detect, passengers are left vulnerable.

Moreover, driverless cars bring controversy
to road safety and challenge police systems. On
June 19, 2025, in San Francisco, a Waymo car was
“driving eastbound in a westbound direction”
according to the officer. He couldn’t ticket the
vehicle however because “officers stopped the
vehicle but declined to write a ticket as there is no
box on a citation labeled ‘robot,’” as reported by
Fox10.

The quick — and seemingly small — mistakes
these vehicles make cause road catastrophes
where drivers must swiftly avoid the driverless
cars have proven to be fatal and difficult to
investigate. This all goes to show that while a self-
driving car has its assets, the drawbacks are still
something to be weary about.

Rerouting… If AVs become more popular and more reliable,
it is likely that 14-year-old girl from earlier won’t
have to teach her future children how to drive.