Automated cars
are being pushed on us harder than crystal meth in a West Virginia trailer park
– by a tag team of the government apparat (which salivates at the prospect of
heightened control over our movements) and a car industry which is becoming
indistinguishable from the government, except that it wants to profit from all
this controlling.
Automated cars
are complex cars and that means expensive cars. It also means
ride-sharing/renting of cars (perpetual payments) rather than owning them,
which the car industry sees as a new “growth opportunity” for its business.
Much more money in that than selling people $15,000 Corollas driven by them.
The good news –
if you prefer not to be controlled – is that automated cars are still a long
way off. They will probably not be able to force us into them for another
several decades and maybe – with any luck – never.
So, breathe
easy.
Yes, it’s true
that elements of automated car technology are already on the road. Many new
cars can park themselves, partially steer themselves and stop (and accelerate)
themselves. But only some of the time, under certain conditions and with the
ironic proviso that the driver must always be ready to step in.
In which case,
what is the point of this automated car technology? Either the technology is
competent enough to drive the car all the time or the driver must be competent
to drive and ready to drive all the time.
Otherwise, it’s
like sugar that isn’t sweet.
If the driver
must be competent and ready to drive all the time, then the automated
technology is essentially useless. Worse than useless, actually. Because it
promotes incompetent, inattentive driving – as witness the recent several
crashes of auto-piloted cars, which either ran into things or ran people over
because the person behind the wheel – we won’t call him a driver – was not
driving.
But in such a
case, who is responsible for the crash? Is it the automated car – or the person
behind the wheel?
Who will pay?
The liability
problems are probably more of an obstacle to automated cars ever being more
than a technocratic wet dream than the technology problems. In a fully
automated car scenario, the car’s occupants – no more drivers, in expectation
or otherwise – cannot be faulted for what the car does. Or what it doesn’t do.
If it runs into a concrete barrier – or fails to not run over a child by
swerving off the road and into a barrier instead – who gets the ticket?
Who gets sued?
It has to be
the manufacturer of the automated car – or the software company. Anyone except
the people along for the ride. In an automated car scenario, insurance becomes
a thing of the past. How can you hold passengers accountable for what the bus –
so to speak – does?
If this thought
has occurred to the insurance mafia – a likely thing – they know that they
stand to lose billions in premiums which will no longer be mandatory for
precisely the reason one is not obliged to carry insurance in order to board a
bus.
They are also
probably aware of the huge payouts that they will be liable for in the event
drivers are still expected – legally obliged – to pay attention to what their
not-really-automated car is doing. Because drivers won’t pay attention if they
don’t have to.
Many already
don’t.
Imagine what
they will do when they can press a button and let the car drive. It is risible
to expect that they will supervise what the automated car does. And when it
does something like drive into a tree or over a child . . .
Or, maybe the
insurance mafia is looking at all of this from a different angle. They won’t be
able to justify forcing individual owners (riders) to buy policies. But they
will be able to hold corporations liable for the inevitable “glitches” that end
up costing people their lives. This is an appealing idea. A shark-on-shark
feeding frenzy. Let’s all watch them bloody the waters, safe in our deck chairs
on the pier.
There is an
absurd presumption that automated cars will function infallibly. You know, like
laptops and sail fawns do. Plus out on the road, being jostled and shaken and
bumped. In winter and summer. In the rain and the snow. After many years and
many miles and many potholes hit, too. Always pristine, always perfectly
working.
Anyone
interested in a time-share deal on the Brooklyn Bridge?
At the same
time, there are tens millions of not-automated cars on the road. Millions of
brand-new ones are rolling off the line – drivers behind the wheel – right now.
These will be on the road for decades to come.
Plus
motorcycles.
It is always
possible, of course, that the creatures in the apparat will attempt to fatwa
off the roads all cars not-automated (and motorcycles, too). And that may
finally rouse the old hound to get up off the floor and shake loose the fleas.
But if not, the liability and technology hurdles will serve the same purpose.
Our
grandchildren may face a future of meat-sackery. But I think we are safe for
the present.
. . .
Got a question
about cars – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!
If you like
what you’ve found here, please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on
you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate
button is here.
If you prefer
not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird
Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA
24079
