Autonomous cars are predicted to solve all our road transportation problems.  Decades ago, the unrealistic dream was flying cars.  They were going to free commuters from the growing congestion of road travel.  Everybody would be able to soar blissfully above the traffic snarls.  Nobody ever though seriously about how those drivers – who couldn’t manage on roads with lanes, traffic signals, right-of-way laws, et cetera – would be able to handle the promised freedom (chaos) of the air.

It seems to me that autonomous cars are a huge cash cow being promoted as a great advance in road safety.  The easiest, cheapest, and most effective way to increase road safety (and efficiency) would be finally to begin teaching drivers to drive!

Incidentally, in his book, Geek Conspiracy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology, Kentaro Toyama explains that high tech has consistently proven of virtually no value in solving social problems.

Analysts of the autonomous car phenomenon sometimes wonder about driver licensing problems resulting from it.  What?  Don’t they get that if the car is doing the driving, none of the passengers has any responsibility for it?  Nobody will need a license. Nobody will even need to know how to drive.  Parents will send their 10 year olds to the store for them and let the car drive.  Heck, they’ll have the car take their kids to kindergarten and pre-school.  Probably take the baby to the doctor.

And this nonsense about the coming legal hassles of determining guilt in crashes.  Come on!  The car was driving.  How’re you going to blame anybody else!

1-19-2017