The End of Driving Article Analysis Essay

For a long time, cars have been a staple luxury used in the United States to flaunt wealth and status. Americans have become accustomed to prioritizing what cars they have over more important obligations that challenge us. Car accidents and environmental problems are ravaging the country at the cost of a vehicular burden. With the future of driving changing, we have to face the fact that cars may be more of a hindrance than a benefit. A car and the liabilities it carries should not be worth more than someone who is a victim of those liabilities. Steve Lagerfeld’s (2019) article in American Scholar, “The End of Driving,” talks about the gains and losses of transitioning from manually driving cars to autonomous driving cars. As the end of driving approaches, Lagerfeld wants to know: At what cost would autonomous cars bring, but wouldn’t the costs of not having autonomous cars burden us more? It would be beneficial for us to consider that non-autonomous cars and the wonders they bring do not equate to a safe and convenient world where autonomous cars exist.

Lagerfeld’s experience driving a self-driving car reflects on its advantages on the road, but behind those advantages are feelings of grief, for the end of people driving cars is inevitable. He describes the end of driving as a tragic necessity, insisting that autonomous cars will provide benefits such as decreasing car accidents and harmful emissions. Despite what advantages autonomous cars will have on the world in the future, Lagerfeld cannot help but reminisce the feelings that nothing other than a car can bring out in people. He talks about how cars are private sanctuaries for people to spend time with their thoughts and ideas. He describes the immersion people experience nowhere else other than behind a wheel that expands beyond consciousness. 

Cars do not cause accidents, people do. A car has no control over who its driver is, and where they are driving to. At least almost all the time, it tends to be the people behind the steering wheel that are often catalysts for fatal car crashes. Lagerfeld points out, “It was the drivers—drunk, stupid, inept, or just unlucky” (p.84). The margin for human error is too much of a problem for people to drive themselves. A car cannot be intoxicated, stupid, or inexperienced, but a human can fit that description like a glove. When we put ourselves behind a wheel and on the road, we don’t know if an inebriated driver is among us until they burden us with life-threatening injuries. We’re unaware of the experience level or the knowledge that other drivers possess which determines whether or not someone will lose their life on a particular day. Autonomous cars will almost relieve us of a fear everyone should have on the road: Death via car. “The coming of autonomous cars won’t eliminate traffic deaths, but it will save many lives” (Lagerfeld, p.84). Although the problem won’t be fixed, the evolution of technology provides us a  useful tool in making it better. This technology gives us insight into how we can utilize a car that can drive itself to actively fight this burden to make the world a safer place every day. Human error will decrease significantly as self-driving cars will be capable of avoiding tragedy. Without autonomous cars, car accidents will tragically continue to claim many victims to fatal injuries and death, and it’s a burden we’ll have to face every day until then. 

The unpredictability of driving lies within the unwritten rules of the road. Road rage and traffic are offspring of this uncertainty that we have in other drivers. Lagerfeld himself has firsthand experience with unpredictable behavior on the road, never knowing what drivers are gonna do, or how they will react to his driving. “This kind of spontaneous choreography occurs on all kinds of roads, thanks to drivers who follow a raft of unwritten rules” (Lagerfeld, p.91). These unwritten rules create anarchy on the road which if everyone isn’t familiar with them, road rage and car accidents happen. Self-driving cars would be able to follow a set of rules that does not ignite erratic behavior. In the world of autonomous driving, there is no uncertainty in driving from point A to point B. The burden of unpredictability will recede with autonomous cars as passengers will not have to worry about the cars adhering to the unwritten rules.

As a status symbol, cars can be increasingly expensive, but for everyday use, regular people are still challenged with the financial obligations that cars need to function properly. We need to pay for gas, oil changes, new tires, replacement car parts, insurance, repairs, and taxes. All of which when added together is a crazy amount of car expenses.“There will be no reason to own your own car, with all its expense and inconveniences, if you can use an app to quickly summon a cheap driverless one” (Lagerfeld, p.88). Think about the weight of what could be thousands of dollars being lifted off your shoulders and into your hands. That money would be able to be spent somewhere else more effectively just because you were able to summon a car with your phone. A world where people have access to autonomous cars is favorable in eliminating these overwhelming financial burdens people have to deal with. 

One of the biggest producers of carbon emissions are cars. Fueled by gas, millions of cars are driven every day, and so much of these emissions pollute our environments.