For a long time, many very experienced limousine hire companies have counselled against overly high expectations of driverless technology - at least in the context of limo hire.
The Future's Bright
While the papers over recent years have been full of phenomenally optimistic predictions of the "drivers will be obsolete tomorrow" variety, many professionals have been more doubtful. Their cited reasons have included things such as:
Public resistance
Safety
Trust
Technical reliability
Etc.
Many of these have been dismissed as "luddite mentality" or "naysaying" by the big business groups who believe the future is already here and who are investing heavily in the technology. That may be understandable but the future has recently become even murkier in this area due to squabbling between legislators and insurance companies.
The Responsibility Dimension
To illustrate the problem, let's consider a relatively minor road traffic accident at the present time.
Broadly speaking, the police and insurance companies have tried and tested methods for allocating responsibility for the accident based upon relatively simple analysis. In a sense, this is simple (frequently, though far from always) because usually there are only human drivers involved and responsibility can be identified and allocated accordingly.
However, imagine the situation where you have two driverless cars. There are then four parties involved, both drivers (who may or may not have been playing a part) plus their software control systems.
Who is responsible in the event of an accident? The driver who might not have even been driving or the provider of the car and its software systems?
Sound surreal? Well, it gets worse!
Have you experienced a PC that's not working and then being at the centre of a round-circle row between the shop you purchased it from, the hardware provider, the operating system provider and your software application provider, all of whom have blamed each for the problem? Ever felt helpless and had to give up?
If so, you're not alone!
Imagine then in future where you're facing a big bill following an accident in which you weren't even driving. Your car manufacturer, your navigation software provider, your control systems provider and the other party's maker and software providers are all squabbling furiously about whose fault it was and trying to produce software logs to prove their point.
Add into that mess two insurance companies fighting their respective corners and there's a real prospect your car is going to sit waiting for repairs for months while it all gets sorted out.
Big Corporate Liability Issue
This isn't just comic - there are some serious issues here.
Many drivers will ask why they should pay driver-related third party insurance when they're not driving the vehicle anymore. You don't expect to pay insurance every time you get on a bus or train because you're not in control. Why should a driverless car be different?
Equally, the car manufacturers and automatic system providers go weak at the knees at the thought of suddenly finding themselves having unlimited third-party liability exposure for every vehicle accident on the planet once driverless systems arrive. The governments of the world are worried that nobody will end up being responsible plus they'll lose a lot of insurance tax income they currently pick up directly or indirectly from Joe Public.
It's a complex mess and it's only a small part of the overall domain here. It's why professional limousine hire providers and others are a little sceptical of the "it's almost here" messages.
They may have a point.
Source by Eby M
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