Cars that Drive Themselves, Ctd

Yglesias points to a piece by Matt Richtel for the NYT discussing the need for drivers to multitask with electronic devices.

JOPLIN, Mo. — Looking back, Paul Dekok wonders what he was thinking that May morning when the urgent call came in. Mr. Dekok, a manager at the Potash Corporation, learned that a 25-ton truckload of the company’s additive for livestock feed had been rejected by a customer as contaminated.

Scrambling to protect his company’s credibility with a big customer, he grabbed his cellphone to arrange a new shipment, cradling it between his left ear and shoulder, and with his right hand e-mailed instructions to his staff from his laptop computer — all while driving his rental car in a construction zone on a two-lane highway in North Carolina.

“I thought I was doing a great job because I was being productive,” Mr. Dekok said. “It’s an adrenaline rush. It’s the buzz we all get of trying to do everything you can in business.”

But later, reflecting on the risks he took that spring day in 2007, he saw himself in a different light: “I was Bozo the clown.

Wouldn't his tasks have been so much easier - and safer - if he hadn't been driving his car, but instead had been sitting in a car that drove itself? Talking on the phone while writing an email is multi-tasking most of us can handle easily. That is...easily if not driving a 2-ton machine at 60 mph.

Some families of victims killed in collisions with a multitasking worker have successfully sued the driver’s employer for tens of millions of dollars.

TAE estimates the cost to retrofit an existing car with automated driving technology would cost around $3,500 per car. Certainly not tens of millions. Needless to say, the cost of the life lost by the careless driver cannot be valued. But if the car were driving itself, that person would almost certainly have not died, as there wouldn't have been a vehicle collision.

I get tired of talking about this, but it is one of the single most plausible ways Americans could help make their lives safer and easier. I harp on and on about it because I want my readers to go out and harp about it too. I want some Congressperson's young aide to hear about my blog and come here, read the laundry list of posts I have written enumerating not only how ridiculous it is that we don't already have automated cars, not only how many lives could be saved, but how many dollars, Federal and private, that could be saved by getting rid of human drivers.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2004, a driver talking on a cellphone on her way to church hit the Teaters’ car, killing Joe and injuring his mother, who was driving. (After his son’s death, Mr. Teater worked 18 months for a company that is developing technology that can prevent a driver from using a cellphone while the car is in motion, and he still owns shares in the company.)

Would that even be Constitutional? Can you really ban cell phone use while driving? I know some cities are doing it, and base the legality of it on the fact that drivers are in "public use" areas, the same way city parks often ban alcohol. But do we really want to put a crutch on American businesses by not allowing their salespeople to have instant access to clients via phone or laptop computer? No one on Earth has ever caused another person's death simply by talking on a cell phone...it is only the talking on cell phones while driving that does it. Why ban cell phone use and hinder people's daily activities, when instead you could ban driving and liberate them to do even more productive activities while commuting?

I think it would be misleading if I didn't openly acknowledge that I love driving. I love being in control of my pickup, occasionally slamming the gas, occasionally getting to put it into 4-wheel-drive and make my own road, being high up and seeing over the tops of cars (a rare treat for someone of my stature), and rolling the window down and "truckin' along while listening to country music. But what I love even more than driving is simply being alive. And having a beautiful wife and daughter that are alive. Losing my "truckin' along" time is a small price to pay if it means they are much, much safer while on the road. Anyone that tells they wouldn't give up the wheel to save lives is being selfish, and reckless.

_