Technology: November 2017 Archives

Self-driving shuttle crashes in Las Vegas hours after launch | Fox News

Human driver of a semi is being blamed for bumping into a self-driving shuttle that drew too close to the back of the truck and failed to allow it room to back up. The reaction of the authorities suggests that human drivers will be expected to make accommodation for the limitations of automated vehicles and be blamed for accidents that are due to those limitations. This is the slippery slope: Allowing autonomous vehicles on the road creates a safety justification for banning vehicles with human drivers. At that point, the automobile will cease to be a tool of personal autonomy, taking you and your stuff where you want to go, and will become a limited-purpose utility, moving you only to those places where the Powers That Be allow you to go. The only defense against that outcome is to ban autonomous vehicles from public thoroughfares.