Oooh, that smarts!

Glenn Reynolds posted a pointer to this New York Times article by science writer John Tierney: "In the Future, Smart People Will Let Cars Take Control" Tierney notes the recent advances in "driverless" car technology, and extols its value in improving road capacity, traffic flow, fuel efficiency, and safety. But then he writes:

Smart cars will never be infallible, but they don’t have to be. They just have to be better than the drivers who now cause more than 90 percent of traffic accidents and kill a million of their fellow humans per year.

Tierney (and Reynolds) ignore two powerful groups: The Luddites, and the trial lawyers. It's easy to imagine the usual suspects railing loudly against introducing "inherently unsafe" smart-car technology,^[1] as the lawyers, demanding 100% infallibility, jump in to litigate it out of existence.

But all objections would be swept away through legislation making "smart cars," (however imperfect) mandatory. That would fit perfectly with the statist dreams of the gentry liberals (after all, anything that reduces the liberty of the rabble is a good thing, right?), while stifling the bar (if it meets government standards, who cares if it kills people?).

And should some future government busybody decide that the trip you want to make to grandmother's house for Christmas is "unnecessary," well, you'll never get out of the garage.


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^[1] You know, like those inherently unsafe nuclear power plants, which, in the U.S., have killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 15:54:53 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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