Our Self-Driving Cars Will Save Lives, but They Will Kill Some of You First
I know this article is satire, but it certainly strikes a chord. Putting big metal robots capable of moving at highway speed in close proximity to squishy humans is going to cause issues. It might be the human&#x27;s fault. It might be the vehicle&#x27;s fault. It might be completely unrelated.<p>However, there are industries like aviation that take these issues seriously. They&#x27;re investigated, reported, and learned from. We need to do the same for autonomous vehicles if they&#x27;re actually going to be safe. This means we need an open, independent body outside of industry control, like the NTSB or NHTSA that can produce in depth, transparent, and publicly available reports that manufacturers can&#x27;t bury or buy away.<p>On the other side, we, the (future) passengers need to be conscious of these safety issues. We need to hold companies accountable for fixing flaws in autonomous vehicles. Airplane accidents can be spectacularly big, which captivates the public. I&#x27;m worried that car accidents will just be too small for enough people to care, and therefore we will continue to have a trickle of fatalities in every city and we will never be free from cars.