I’ve been writing about driverless cars for a few years now. I’ve been thinking about them for a lot longer. Dreaming of them, I guess. You see, for anyone of my generation (‘Generation X’), the future’s been a long time coming.
There’s almost nothing in today’s world that wasn’t around in my childhood – albeit in a less sophisticated and more expensive form. Getting the internet was a big deal, but beyond the opening of cyberspace, the world isn’t so very different to how it was forty years ago. Certainly, the changes I’ve lived through are much less significant than those my parents or grandparents lived through by the time they got to my current age.
Driverless cars, however, make me feel like the future is finally happening. And, yes, this technology really is just around the corner – in some cities, quite literally.
The prototypes are out on the road and they’re even letting journalists take them for a test drive. For instance here’s David Leonhardt of the New York Times:
“With the car traveling 40 miles an hour on a busy road in the Washington suburbs, I pushed a button to activate the driverless mode and moved my foot away from the brake and accelerator. The car kept its speed. Soon, a traffic light in the distance turned red, and the cars in front of me slowed. For a split second, I prepared to slam on the brake.
“There was no need. The cameras and computers in the Volvo recognized that other cars were slowing and smoothly began applying the brake. My car came to a stop behind the Ford ahead of me. I began laughing, even though no one else was in the car, as my anxiety turned to relief.”
The model that Leonhardt took for a spin, a Volvo S90 sedan, is better described as “semi-driverless” – i.e. for part of the time he drove, at other times he could choose to let the car drive itself.
This, he argues, is how people will overcome their very natural concerns about the technology:
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SubscribeHe is so right in saying that legislating by decree is inappropriate.
A delight to see two such articulate people speaking to each other!
The NHS was overwhelmed during the first lockdown!