Watch Out America the Car Grabbers are Coming

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by Glenn R. Geist

I’ve been warning people for years now. The car-grabbers are coming for your car (and your freedom.)

Over and over again, I hear the precious claim that self-driving cars will “potentially save 30,000 lives a year” That’s one of those speculative statistics people seem to accept as having some validity, but I don’t believe it. They’re coming to take your car. Think about it, we could save untold lives (potentially) if we made everyone use a wheelchair. Just look at how many people die in falls every year. Crash helmets would save lives in bathrooms everywhere.  The “even if one life is saved” argument is a slippery one and often is not hard to reduce to absurdity.

Artificial intelligence is fascinating, but just as with your teenage son or daughter, most of the learning comes through experience and not from the rules of the road booklets and that experience comes at your expense. Will your brand new car know what to do or be able to do it when it comes around a corner and sees an object in the road? Will it know the difference between a palm frond in the road or a person? Will it discriminate between a dead cat and a brick or a live dog? What risk will it take to avoid hitting something that really poses no harm?

Too many unanswered questions hide behind the promise of safety or the hyperbolic warnings of danger. An electric self-driving bus got into an accident on its first day of testing in Las Vegas. It stopped behind a semi too close to be seen and the truck simply backed right into it. The Bus just sat there, not “knowing” what to do or being able to do it.

Your 16-year old Scion might have honked the horn, put it in reverse and done some kind of maneuver. She might not have stopped so close – but no, it just sat there. At least it was a slow speed incident and no one was hurt, but in my opinion, what happened in Vegas should stay there and stay the hell off the roads I drive on.

About Post Author

Glenn Geist

Glenn Geist lives in South Florida and wastes most of his time boating, writing, complaining and talking on the radio
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Neil Bamforth
6 years ago

Some chap died testing one of these things. I think he was watching a movie or something.
His car failed to identify an articulated truck….I think it was blue so the car thought it was the sky?
Anyway, the test driver didn’t make the end credits.

Reply to  Neil Bamforth
6 years ago

I hadn’t heard of that happening. Interesting.

Neil Bamforth
Reply to  Professor Mike
6 years ago

Haven’t looked but it’ll deffo be on Google. Wasn’t so long ago…

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