A self driving safety conundrum

Self driving safety

I found myself in an uncomfortable argument with a relative recently over self driving technology, or more precisely, self driving safety. It seems he has a difficult time staying awake on the highway, and thought that a car that could drive itself would be a good safety move.

I had a different take, so things went down hill from there.

In 2017, the Ford Motor Co. found that their own engineers were falling asleep while monitoring self-driving tech in their cars. In fact, it was reported that the professional monitors would not respond to buzzers, alerts, or the presence of another human being.

At the time it prompted the company to abandon plans to issue self driving at Level 3, which still requires a driver’s attention. We did a piece on this at the time.

So there I was panning his purchase, in effect because while he has trouble staying awake while driving, he’d bought a vehicle with tech that could put him to sleep.

Its a curious conundrum, as I understand his rationale. And on the plus side, after the bells and whistles of the type effectively ignored by the Ford testers, if the driver does not respond, the Tesla Auto Pilot technology is set to automatically begin to slow the car down, activate the hazard lights, and eventually come to a complete stop in the middle of the lane.

It would be best if it would pull over into a break down lane, but its better than continuing on. Full autonomy, which remains years away, will resolve this conundrum.

And it should be noted that, given the competition, Ford has since relented, and now offers its Blue Cruise self-driving system in high-end models. Blue Cruise is also set to bring the vehicle to a stop if the driver is unresponsive to alerts. And other manufacturers offer similar systems.

All the while many seniors, who are losing some physical abilities, and the disabled are counting on and using self-driving technology to maintain their independence.

Time will tell if we have the cart too far ahead of the horse.

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