Automated vehicles have potential to bring greater safety, mobility and sustainability to our roads.
Public understanding of automated vehicles is essential to achieving that potential.
Safety
Safety
Road crashes kill thousands of Americans every year, and human error plays a role in the vast majority of those crashes. Automated systems aren’t sleepy, they don’t text and drive, they don’t drive drunk – offering the potential to sharply reduce deaths and injuries on our roads.
Learn MoreSafety
Safety is at the heart of why so many believe automation technologies are important to the future of transportation. While auto safety manufacturers and safety regulators have made great strides in auto safety, thousands still die on the roads every year, and even more are seriously injured. Most of those deaths come in crashes that involve some human error or misjudgment: driving too fast, driving while drunk or drugged, driving while distracted or sleepy. Safety experts believe automated vehicles can prevent many of those crashes by avoiding the human misjudgments that so often lead to tragedy on the roads.
37,133
Number of Americans who died in road crashes in 2017
(Source: NHTSA)
Mobility
Mobility
Most of us take for granted the ability to get behind the wheel every day. But for many, the inability to drive – because of disability, age, or economic circumstance – sharply limits freedom. For those Americans, automated vehicles offer a path to new mobility.
Learn MoreMobility
Personal vehicles carry us to work, to school, to activities with community, families and friends. But that mobility is much harder, if not impossible, to achieve for those with visual impairments or other disabilities, for seniors who are less able to drive, and to those whose can’t afford a personal vehicle. Mobility experts see automated vehicles as an important new opportunity for these Americans, many of whom could for the first time enjoy the same freedom and economic opportunity that most of us enjoy.
80%
percentage of Americans with transportation-limiting disabilities who are not employed
(Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics)
Sustainability
Sustainability
Crashes don’t just cause deaths and injuries – they cause traffic jams and delays. Automation offers the potential to reduce traffic congestion that increases pollution, makes our cities less livable, and costs all of us precious hours and dollars.
Learn MoreSustainability
More than 90 percent of all energy used in transportation comes from oil, and transportation accounts for 28.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Many energy experts believe automated vehicles could possibly reduce that environmental impact by preventing crashes, smoothing traffic, and enabling new modes of vehicle ownership and usage. Automation may make it possible to increase the share of vehicles powered by electricity, and it may also make low-emission vehicles more attractive to the public.
$71 billion
estimated annual economic benefit of reduced traffic congestion from automated vehicles
PAVE members completed
486,980
miles of on-road testing of automated vehicles on California roads in 2017
Facts are central to PAVE’s mission of helping inform the public and policymakers. While the topic of automated vehicles can seem dauntingly complicated, knowing some basic terminology and learning a little about the key questions for our transportation future can help bring everyone into the conversation.
ABOUT PAVE
PAVE is a coalition of partners dedicated to educating policymakers and the public about automated vehicles and the increased safety, mobility and sustainability they can bring.
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