Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Will the motor industry ever let the car drive?
One day in the not too distant future we may see the first fully automated car. Effectively, it will be a mechanised chauffeur, delivering you from appointment to appointment without you so much as having to grasp a steering wheel or grip a gearstick.
Yes, you may have to stay sober enough to keep from slurring while you state your destination to the vehicle's voice recognition system, but it is a small price to be paid for the joys of just raising your arms and reclining with your head in your hands.Whether this scenario will lead to the extinction of the human driver, I don't know. But one thing I can be certain of is that it would change the car insurance market forever.
I very much doubt that individual drivers would be held liable for accidents caused by automated vehicles; instead liability would in all likelihood lie with the manufacturer.
Having reached this realisation, it suddenly seems unlikely that we will see the sale of an automated car any time soon; perhaps it is a development only the very young will live to witness. This is because manufacturers would have to be all but certain that their vehicles had no bugs or glitches in the computer systems of automated cars.
Just think of the recent Toyota recalls, the costs of liability lawsuits and recalls would be ruinous and something manufacturers would be reluctant to ever take on.
Image © Scott Smith Photography via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
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posted by Fuse @ 3:12 AM 
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