Self-driving

The Self-Driving Future: Part 5

~ Mr. Rantastic

Once we have self driving cars, will there be any privacy left? Probably not. We will have to go to extreme measures to prevent Grandma Google and Frère Facebook from following every journey.

It used to be that you were anonymous in a cab. The driver didn’t know your name and you paid with cash.

Then they started letting people pay for cabs with credit cards, and your anonymity was left at the curb. Still, they weren’t really tracking where you went.

Then Uber came along and tracked everything. Where you came from, where you went, what time of day you traveled and more. But if you didn’t take Uber and drove yourself you still had a chance at privacy.

Self driving cars are likely to be unlocked by a phone app, so the car will know who you are. The car manufacturers are going to track how and where the car drives itself to protect themselves from liability if there is an accident. At this point, the car will know your identity and where and when it went. Do you really think they won’t be linked?

Even if you drive the car manually, all of the sensors required to track you will still be there. Services like Amazon’s Alexa will be riding shotgun with you.  Do you really think you’ll be able to turn them off? Even if you could, your insurance company will probably give you a big break on rates if you leave them on.

Especially if you buy it from Amazon Auto Insurance.

 

The Self-Driving Future: Part 4

~ Mr. Rantastic

So I am driving down the highway in my self driving car and the driver in the next lane pulls a bonehead lane change. We crash. Who is liable?

Of course the self driving car should be smart enough to avoid bonehead moves by other drivers? But how smart? What will the standard be?

On the one hand, the self driving car would probably have a camera recording everything that happens around it, and would be able to show the cops and insurance company the reckless and probably illegal move the other car made that ‘could not be avoided’.

On the other hand, the manual driver might say, “Look, maybe it was an idiot move, but people make idiot moves all the time – that’s part of driving. An alert driver would have been able to avoid an accident and your self driving car is obviously not as good as an alert manual driver.” Sue the manufacturer.

Inventively there will be horror stories in the press about people with unexpected hits on their insurance due to self-driving crashes. Eventually, the government, the lawyers and the insurance companies will work it out. But until they do, look for many folks to be reluctant to turn on the autopilot.