Self-driving cars might become germ factories, carrying germs from rider to rider.
Germs are all around us.
Are there germs on a toilet seat?
Sure, we all know that.
Here’s what might surprise you, there are apparently more germs on the backseat of today’s human-driven ridesharing cars than the volume of germs found on toilet seats (according to a study by an insurance firm).
The next time you get into a conventional ridesharing car, perhaps eye that backseat with some dismay and disdain, and make sure you sit down cautiously and keep your hands away from the grimy surfaces.
We probably should be a bit cautious in over-generalizing the research study since it only included nine vehicles consisting of three randomly selected ridesharing cars, along with three randomly selected taxis and three randomly selected rental cars.
Researchers used swabs to collect samples of what existed on the surfaces of the backseats and some other areas within the subject cars.
The primary metric used to analyze the swabs was the number of Colony-Forming Units, known as CFU's, per square inch, and a subsequent examination of the proportions of different germs types, such as bacillus, cocci, yeast, and other elements.
You undoubtedly know that various amounts of bacillus germs can potentially cause you to become infected and suffer accordingly. Plus, the exposure to quantities of cocci can lead to pneumonia and blood poisoning.
It’s a scary germ infecting world that we live in.
These germs don’t necessarily magically attack you, instead you typically have to help them get inroads into your body, such as touching the germs with your hands and then putting your fingers into or onto your mouth or nostrils.
In one sense, your body is like a castle that tries to keep germs at bay, and meanwhile you can unknowingly let them in via an open castle window or other passageway.
According to these germ seeking scientists with their swabs, they discovered that ridesharing car backseats had more germs than do toilet seats (well, in comparison to the average everyday toilet seat, which maybe you keep yours exactingly cleaner at home), and they also revealed that ridesharing was the worst germ-monger over rental cars, and that taxis were the lesser of the three in terms of harboring nasty germs.
Why would ridesharing cars be the worse of the three?
The most likely answer seems to be that rental cars and taxis tend to get regularly cleaned, frequently occurring at the end of a shift or the end of the day.
There is normally a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for rental agencies that entails them cleaning the interior of rented cars upon return.
For cabs, usually the cab agency will do a wipe-down on a regular schedule. Before you yell at me that you’ve been in many cabs that were filthy, and rented rental cars that seemed like they hadn’t been cleaned in a year, yes, I realize that does occur, but presumably, on the balance, there is a greater chance that a cab or rental car might get regular cleaning versus a ridesharing car.
Most ridesharing cars are owned and operated by an individual serving as the ridesharing driver. They might not have any regular schedule they observe to clean the interior of their vehicle.
Of course, if they pick-up someone from a late-night bar and the person upchucks in the backseat, hopefully a thorough cleaning will be instigated.
Overall, and without offending ridesharing drivers, the odds are they aren’t cleaning their backseat with any regular pattern (okay, there are exceptions, and I’ve been in ridesharing cars that you could eat off the backseat without much concern).
My point in bringing up this germ foreboding news is that it can give us a heads-up about something that might well occur in the future: It could be that once we have true self-driving cars, the seats and interior surfaces of these autonomous cars might be as bad or even worse than today’s ridesharing germ-mobiles.
Let’s unpack the matter.
Self-Driving Cars For Non-Stop Rides
It is widely assumed that once we have true self-driving cars available there will be a tremendous surge in ridesharing and mobility, some claim that we are going to become a mobility-based economy.
Whereas today you need to find a car that perchance has available a human driver, in the future there won’t presumably be any delay or difficulty about finding a driver since the driverless car has its own built-in AI driving capability.
Thus, you can summon a self-driving car at your whim and be whisked away.
In fact, it is further anticipated that self-driving cars will be running essentially non-stop, 24 x 7, week after week. This is partially due to the fact that there is no driver that needs any rest, and also under the belief that the way to recoup the costs associated with owning a self-driving car will be to rideshare it out as much as possible.
That being said, admittedly we need to be realistic and include into this equation that a car is still a car, meaning that even self-driving cars will need some amount of “downtime” for purposes of maintenance, repairs, and the like (plus, there’s the time needed to refuel or recharge).
Suppose that today’s ridesharing cars are getting maybe 8 hours of use per day, possibly less or slightly more depending upon the ridesharing driver and whether they are working full-time or part-time at providing a ridesharing service.
If those ridesharing cars are getting a dose of accumulated germs, you need to ponder what the germ level will be inside a self-driving car that is working around-the-clock.
A chilling thought.
It seems reasonable to anticipate that the germ counts will go up, and that a driverless car being used for ridesharing has the potential to be a veritable germ factory.
I realize that some might think this is hyperbole about germs, but don’t be so fast to let this matter get filed under the nonsensical category.
There would be a heightened chance that with more people using cars, and with the boosted time of collecting germs, things could get out-of-hand.
In short, a driverless car would be a ready means of transporting and transferring germs across a wide swath of people in a relatively short period of time. Kind of like a futuristic virus carrier that’s primed to inadvertently spread infection.
Fortunately, since we can predict the scourge, there’s a good chance to prevent it from occurring, or at least try to mitigate the odds of it getting out-of-control.
Solving The Self-Driving Car Germs Problem
There are several viable ways to overcome the germ raging aspects of self-driving cars.
Hopefully, some or all of these approaches will be put into actual practice once driverless cars become prevalent.
Meanwhile, if you are wondering how today’s public roadway tryouts are faring when it comes to germs,, the public roadway tryouts of driverless cars are rather minimal today, plus those self-driving cars are being doted over by a dedicated technician crew.
If you manage to get into a self-driving car today, assuredly it is going to have a cleaner backseat than the typical ridesharing car and likely even better than an everyday rental car or a cab.
Here’s some solutions or remedies to consider about germ-stopping a future germ-spreading self-driving car world:
• Proper Maintenance. Whenever the self-driving car car is getting its ongoing maintenance, the interior should get a proper scrubbing and cleaning. Though this does mean that the amount of downtime will get extended, it could not only help the health of us all, it could also be a marketing point that would attract passengers to use one fleet of self-driving cars over other fleets that aren’t being as clean-minded.
• Hand Sanitizer. Provide hand sanitizer in the self-driving car for use by passengers. This adds some cost, I realize, and you’d need to make sure the soap is being replenished, but once again this has both a positive health impact and can be another handy marketing tool.
• Anti-Microbial Surfaces. Use an anti-microbial treatment on the interior surfaces of the self-driving car. This approach is similar to fitness equipment in gyms that are increasingly sprayed with anti-microbial treatments, and could be a more maintenance-free (or less maintenance) way to try and mitigate germs from spreading.
• Electrostatic Tech. Consider using electrostatic technology that would be embedded into the self-driving car. The idea of electrostatic tech is that you apply a charge to a surface, and it zaps the germs dead. This might be something that could be incorporated into the interior of a driverless car, though it would be important to obviously only allow the usage of it when safe to do so (watch out for the AI system that of-its-own mind opts to deploy it on unruly passengers).
• Passengers Do Cleaning. Ask passengers of self-driving car to voluntarily do cleaning while inside for a journey, or possibly offer a discount on the fare for doing so. This is a somewhat debatable approach and it would be hard to know whether people will favor this, and if they do it won’t be so easily controlled. Of course, since it is assumed that driverless cars are likely to have cameras pointing inward, doing so to detect when passengers try to rip apart your ridesharing driverless car, it could also showcase whether a passenger really did some cleaning.
Conclusion
The germs issue concerning self-driving cars won’t become apparent until we end-up with a prevalence of driverless cars.
Once self-driving cars are commonplace, there will undoubtedly by some kind of breakout of an infection, and it will be traced to having originated via transfer of germs within a driverless car.
At that time, there will be a tremendous public outcry, and perhaps regulators that rush to push forward legislation about keeping the interiors of driverless cars germ-free.
As such, you don’t have to right now lay awake at night worrying about driverless cars and their germ spreading proclivities.
I’d suggest instead you be thinking about your next ridesharing trip and bring with you an array of cleaning products for a safer ride.
Being forewarned begets being forearmed.
