They can’t even get automated traffic lights to work – to sync the green/red cycles in order to smooth the flow of traffic – but we’re supposed to believe that millions of automated cars are going to sync perfectly, whizz along at 100 MPH in tight formation, without a hitch – just like the Blue Angels, the Navy’s precision flying demonstration squadron.
In the rain and snow. The heat of high summer, the bitter cold of January. Dirt, sand, potholes. 24/7, year ’round – for year after year after year, ongoing. Mechanical and electrical components will never wear out – or crap out, unexpectedly.
Really?
Traffic lights are pretty simple things – even the “smart” ones that have cameras and sensors with which they can “see” traffic (just like automated cars). But coordinating lights to go green at the same time – instead of one going green and then the next one just ahead going red, causing needless stop-and-go traffic congestion – seems to be a bridge too far for the same technocrats who promise a seamless, Blue Angles-like automated car experience.
Even when traffic lights are successfully synced, they rarely remain synced for long.
Something always goes wrong. A power outage scrambles their brains. A software/programming/hardware glitch upsets the apple cart. The timing gets jumbled. Red light, green light, red light.
Stop – and go.
But at least you can stop (and go).
For now.
Your current autonomous car – the one controlled by you – still has brake/accelerator pedals and a steering wheel.
Your Future Car may not. The idea being to automate those functions, in order to take away your autonomy.
The good news is that it’ll probably work about as well as automated traffic lights.
Leavings aside the emasculation that automated cars would impose on us – male and female alike – by depriving us of the ability to control our vehicles, which would mean a return to childhood, a time when our parents took us places and we sat in the back and had little to no say in the matter – there is the false assumption about the omniscience and perfection of automated vehicle technology.
Notwithstanding the abundance of evidence that technology – much simpler technology than the technology necessary to automate millions of cars – routinely craps out.
Traffic lights, for instance.
Or the computer you’re probably reading this on. Your smartphone. Have either ever crashed or done something Weird for no apparent reason? What happens when you accidentally spill some coffee on them? Drop them? What about five or six years from now, when the drive is getting arthritic, the OS out of date?
At least they’re not moving down the road at 70 MPH.
Automated cars will – we’re told – move down the road at much higher speeds. Inches apart, us asleep in back or watching YouTube videos.
Whisk, whisk.
In perfect safety. Just like the automated Uber . . .
But at least you can stop (and go).
For now.
Your current autonomous car – the one controlled by you – still has brake/accelerator pedals and a steering wheel.
Your Future Car may not. The idea being to automate those functions, in order to take away your autonomy.
