Here's the difference and major flaw with your comparisons - none of those things are mandated, and plenty of people choose not to. But you're talking about forcing these self-driving cars on those who don't want them. That is more along the lines of force-feeding people chocolate whether they like it or not, or forcing people to snort drugs or dumping beer down their throats. That's a more accurate comparison, and that's why I take such issue with you over it.
Besides, we need less freedoms and more government mandates like we need holes in the head. No thank you. Give us the option? Sure. Force us? Heck no.
As you know, the self-driving cars being researched now are independent of a change infrastructure. Those who want to continue in the mundane activity of operating a vehicle while others are napping, reading, surfing the net can keep doing it in the future. At least, that is until the technology is so mature that these people become liabilities and are forced to move on or get off the road (similar to how cars eventually replaced horse-drawn carriages).
I hate this stupid push button fad.
It is a trend, not a fad, as evidenced by the increasing prevalence of it and the obvious happiness people with this have with it.
What the hell is wrong with a key turning in the ign. cylinder? It has been done this way for god knows how many years and there is nothing wrong with it.
Drum brakes, no crash-zones, no AC, manual windows were all used for a long time, too. There was "nothing wrong" with them except they were inferior to newer technologies.
And that is exactly what should not happen.
It exactly should happen, and it exactly will. Increasingly standard are techs in vehicles like automatic braking in case of potential rear-ending. As these mature and become more powerful the safety difference between a regular person-driven car and one equipped with lots of sensors and logic will become larger. Reasonably, insurance rates should go down for those with the options as opposed to up for those without. Automobile accidents are a major cause of death and dismemberment in this country. Within the next few decades there will be a monumental shift in computerized transport. This is inevitable. You need to see the bright sides to it, not the negative. Our grand children will look back in shame and dismay at how we live now, that a thousand cars on a road used to have a thousand individual humans, all flawed and only paying marginal attention, driving down the road. Computers can, and will do it better. Every car company knows this and that's why many are pouring money into R&D, lest they totally miss the boat.
The government already forces your behavior when you drive. You can't drive at 100 because you are a risk to others. We all drive our own cars now because there is no other option, but if there were a cheap effective technology that made you 95% safer to everybody around you while driving in a
public space, yes the government will enforce it. The truth is eventually it will be impossible to buy a car that isn't mostly autonomous anyway, so as the old cars rust out, they just won't be replaced and that will be that, a shameful 100 year run of traffic accidents and distracted driving thrown into history's dustbin.
Facebook
Twitter