The thousands of accidents caused by human commercial drivers each year won't matter at all when the first high-profile driverless accident occurs. Expect the question all over the media to be "Are we really ready for driverless cars?" The unfortunate victim of the accident will have proposed laws named after them as everyone with an elected office rushes to reassure their voters that they're on top of the danger and can be relied upon to legislate it away. A safer, cleaner, easier future of transportation will hang in the balance as reason contends with panic in the public consciousness.
And people will start getting annoyed by the "too nice" driving habits that driverless cars will have to adopt. I'm sure that some passengers will be livid that their car refuses to tailgate people when they're in a hurry. Granted, that could be somewhat alleviated by allowing the car to switch in and out of driverless mode, but that causes new problems.
Remember that plane that went down because the inexperienced pilot didn't realize that the plane was actually letting him stall it due to the minor equipment malfunction?
The thousands of accidents caused by human commercial drivers each year won't matter at all when the first high-profile driverless accident occurs. Expect the question all over the media to be "Are we really ready for driverless cars?" The unfortunate victim of the accident will have proposed laws named after them as everyone with an elected office rushes to reassure their voters that they're on top of the danger and can be relied upon to legislate it away. A safer, cleaner, easier future of transportation will hang in the balance as reason contends with panic in the public consciousness.