Unlike other people, I am excited for the day when we can hop into a vehicle, and tell it where we want to go. There are a lot of people out there who are totally against this idea, claiming that it's their right to drive, or that autonomous vehicles kill people.
To that I say, so what if a self driving car hits a person, or another car, we do it all the time, and we do it frequently, I would say it happens on a daily basis. We also go out driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, which is way worse than any self driving car. I am under the impression that an autonomous vehicle would be less likely to get into an accident, and that the collisions that do happen are on rare occasions.
Where in any autonomous vehicle advertisement does it say that you would not be able to control the vehicle? It's also my impression that there will be a manual position where you drive the vehicle yourself if you wanted to. Nobody has a problem getting a cab or an Uber, you jump in the back seat and tell the driver where to go, and you hope that the driver actually knows how to drive even though you have never met them before that moment. You will let a complete stranger drive you around but not a computer driven car.
I look forward to the day when I could get into my vehicle, tell it where to go, and lay back and have a snooze. If it's a particularly long trip, I could watch a movie, read a book or play a game. How nice would that be?
No more road rage drivers, people driving like idiots, or impaired drivers to deal with. You could go out for the evening and have as many drinks as you want and let your car drive you home. Sounds like an all around good idea to me. If you ever want to enjoy the drive yourself, put the car in manual and knock your socks off.
I imagine that there will be autonomous only areas where you are not allowed to manually drive, and other areas where you will have to manually drive.
Love it or hate it, one thing is for certain, autonomous vehicles are almost mainstream forms of transportation and it's only a matter time before we see them all over our streets. You can fight it, or sit back and enjoy the ride.
Scott Goerz
