Driverless Cars: Part Deux

Recently the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to adopt autonomous cars. Wait if we have driverless cars do we really need the DMV? One can only dream. Even as free market as I am, I still think you need rules in the early stages of driverless cars. Google has test driven some of these cars already and before long these cars will only get more experience. One thing people forget is that the longer technology has been out there it will only get better through innovation and by trial and error. The first cars will of course not be perfect. I don’t doubt people might get hurt or could possibly die in the first edition of these kinds of cars. The question will be however will driverless cars be safer than an ordinary human driver? I think the answer is: In time yes driverless cars will be safer than human drivers. Humans are incredibly smart creatures and even robots can’t capture all of our intelligence. However, robots are very good at repeated tasks and doing things much more precisely than humans.

My theory is that driverless cars will not happen over-night, but however be a gradual process. The first stage might be to have the driverless cars with some human assistance. Gradually though the amount of human intervention needed would decrease as cars become smarter and safer. These driverless cars could serve as taxi-cabs if they were truly driverless. Another application might be to have the cars do errands for people. One example could be the car could drive itself to the grocery store and pick up items. The car could park in some type of lane and a clerk from the store could load the food into the car. This sounds like a neat idea but even I know its decades away.

The legislation in Nevada about driverless cars is a step in the right direction. In a earlier blog I went into more detail about the possible benefits from driverless cars and still feel as if they would benefit society immensely.