Especially if there are two or more people in the passenger compartment? Or will speed limits simply become unenforceable?
Obviously, the DUI arrest will be a thing of the past.
I don't think speeding would be possible in a self-driving car, unless someone hacked it or something.
If a self-driving car did get pulled over for whatever reason, the ticket would go to the owner. Maybe even confiscate/recall the car.
What if the owner is not even in the car? What if, as is increasingly likely, the car were hired, e. g., Uber?
shareI would guess they would all have the equivalent of a black box that would log your every move... if they were outfitted with some type of manual override... it would have a record of that. You'll probably need a finger or retina scan just to start the car.
If anything I'd worry that self driving cars would have too much power over the driver. I can see a scenario where instead of issuing a warrant for your arrest, that your car locks you in and drives you to a police station.
The Fifth Amedment to the Constitution of the US stipulates that one cannot be compelled to incriminate him/herself, so, if the person owned the car (decreasingly likely) an attorney worth his/her salt would have evidence recorded on the owner's property deemed inadmissible.
shareYeah most futurists visualize a world with endless self driving taxis circling about and less car ownership... so it would be interesting to see what happens. But we are becoming more and more like Minority Report.
shareIt'd have to be the owner
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LOL, Kane!
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When smartcars become the norm, will there even be speed limits at all, or will authorities conclude the car will know what kind of performance is best for the conditions? Eventually almost no citizen will know how to drive, because of lack of need, so we won't be able to hold the passenger responsible, because s/he lacks the knowledge and experience to assess a motoring situation. Eventually only a few people will even own a car--it's more convenient and affordable to hire one--so there won't be many owners to blame. Will more sophisticated cars be legally allowed to do things that smart shitboxes are not, because they have better AI, safety and performance features? Will the Rolls-Royce smartcar be allowed to go 50 mph faster than the Cadillac smartcar and 100 mph than the Kia? Will some luxury smartcars be allowed to run red lights because of their hi-tech skill sets? Will we even have traffic lights, or will we build pedestrian underpasses at intersections (which will instantly fill with unemployed muggers) so the smartcars can stream on, unimpeded? Obviously, the owners of the luxury smartcars will be wealthy and wealth has its privileges, because the wealthy are better people than we are. They will reach their destinations faster, safer and more comfortably. Will we also allow them to run down any illegal aliens the smartcar senses? Which smartcars will Donald Trump own?
It's not too soon to be asking the question, at what point in the technofuture is the burden of responsibility in a given situation going to shift from the human to the machine? That day WILL come. The attorneys are going to be all over this. And if your life were on the line in court, do you want the human lawyer, or the AI?
You sound like a sci-fi fan like me, Kane. Those are all interesting and very forward looking points, but I don't think we'll see any of that in our lifetimes. Of course, I could be wrong. Have been before, will be again.
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I am wrong several times a day. What I am positing WILL happen. Some of us may not live to see it, but I think that others of us will. We need to start thinking farther into the future than ever before.
And yes, Isaak Asimov rocks.
We're all wrong several times a day.
I agree. I also like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and Douglas Adams. But the best ever was
the late, great Arthur C. Clarke
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I would add Herbert George Welles , Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly and Jules Verne to your excellent list.
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Yes, how could I forget them? And thanks for all the fish.
BTW, I always thought of the "ABC's of Sci-Fi" were Assimov, Bradbury, and Clarke.
I'm not sure if I came up with that, or I read it somewhere.
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I like to think of it as simple as possible. If the car is sold to the public then it should still have manual override function. In turn, it will make the owner of the car (or someone who is operating the vehicle) as the responsible party for any misconduct or law breaking. This is the most viable type of autonomous vehicles in the near future.
If the car is fully automatic and has no override function whatsoever, like a taxi, a train or a plane from the consumer's prespective, then it should not be sold but only leased. Because of the full auto mechanism, these vehicles would never broke a law when functioning normally.
That means the leasing party (which is Google, Apple or Tesla, etc.) is the one responsible for any malfunction of the vehicles. For who may pay the ticket, maybe the insurance company those corporations works with.