title: Public Health, Ethics, and Autonomous Vehicles.
abstract: With the potential to save nearly 30 000 lives per year in the United States, autonomous vehicles portend the most significant advance in auto safety history by shifting the focus from minimization of postcrash injury to collision prevention. I have delineated the important public health implications of autonomous vehicles and provided a brief analysis of a critically important ethical issue inherent in autonomous vehicle design. The broad expertise, ethical principles, and values of public health should be brought to bear on a wide range of issues pertaining to autonomous vehicles.
authors.affiliation: Janet Fleetwood is with the Department of Community Health and Prevention, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA.
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fleetwood
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000517:prevention & control*; D001336:Automobiles; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D004867:Equipment Design / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology