I will forego the use of the term “autonomous vehicle” in referring to cars, trucks, etc. that are automatically driven by computer because if you’re riding in one, that being the main point after all, the vehicle is by no means on its own.  “Driverless” doesn’t work either, because the car is most certainly being “driven”, i.e. entirely controlled by something.  For now and for lack of a better term, I’m just going to call such a thing a “computer operated vehicle”, or COV for short.  Maybe by the time I’m finished writing I’ll come up with a different term that will make for a much snappier acronym.

Morning Open Thread is a daily,  copyrighted  post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.

This is a post where you can come to share what’s on your mind and stay for the expansion.  The diarist is on California time and gets to take a nap when he needs to, or may just wander off and show up again later.  So you know, it's a feature, not a bug.

Grab your supportive indulgence(s) of choice and join us, please.  And if you’re brand new to Morning Open Thread, then Hail and Well Met, new Friend.

I’m willing to bet that every single one of you has already ridden in a COV, but it’s subtle.  The ubiquitous elevator.  It’s a conveyance apparatus for moving humans about, it’s actually called a “car”, and it is totally automatically controlled except for input from the riders as to desired destination.  But elevators seldom crash.  Cars on the road crash all the day and night long, maiming and killing humans and other important living creatures and driving (see what I did there?) insurance rates through the, ahem, windshield.  That’s what COVs are purported to make all but impossible.  I think this can happen, but I also believe there is one other thing that has to happen to bring this to reality.  I’ll get to that.

Over the course of many years, perhaps at least a decade now, maybe more, I’ve watched a lot of documentary videos on COVs, and back in the 80’s I had my own idea on how they could work and what they would look like.  My idea was that they would entirely replace human-operated cars, would run on magnetic levitation strips embedded in the pavement, would all be identical in size and shape, and nobody would personally own one.  You’d call for it in advance of your desired departure time, just like you would call a taxi today, and when it arrived (within no more than ten minutes from request) you’d just key in your destination, sit down, and enjoy the high-speed ride.  Because they would be 100% controlled by computer and because there would be absolutely no human-operated vehicles or any pedestrians sharing the same road space, the risk of having a wreck would be so minuscule that there would not even be a need to wear seat belts.  But what I’m seeing on recent documentaries is just the opposite:  COVs will share the road with [drunk and distracted] motorists, motorcycles, bicyclists, pedestrians, dogs and cats, and you-name-it.  All those things that appear as if by magic, bolt out of the blue, utterly unanticipated road hazards.  This idea is NUTS!!!

If we, ahem, keep going down this road this is the inescapable result:

Mixing COVs with the ordinary human traffic environment is just like mixing gunpowder with fire.  There can be only one outcome.

I can’t link to it because it’s on one of my streaming services (it’s Autonomy, on Curiousity Stream), but there is one documentary where several fully-automatic cars are operating on a “typical” surface street environment, grid-like, with intersections, but there are no non-automatic vehicles involved.  It’s an environment in which unanticipated hazards have been purposely minimized, very much like a railroad corridor.  If you’re not a train, you are prohibited from being anywhere near the tracks.  Obstacles are introduced, including pedestrians, and the cars all avoid collision with each other and the obstacles.  The main point is that really dangerous things, like humans at the controls, aren’t happening here, and are not allowed here.  Stupid human error has been removed from the equation.  And that’s where I’m going with this.

I believe that in order for COVs to become the norm they must have dedicated roadways and very limited pedestrian access to those roadways.  They must be segregated.  Under no ordinary circumstances should a human-operated vehicle be allowed to occupy the same roadway.  This will require a paradigm shift in our thinking and infrastructure, but think of the benefits.  Do we really want to keep this up, because freedom?

NHTSA projects that an estimated 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year, a 10.5% increase from the 38,824 fatalities in 2020. The projection is the highest number of fatalities since 2005 and the largest annual percentage increase in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System's history.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

I speak from an acknowledged biased point of view:  I haven’t driven since 2010, and I’m doing just fine this way.  I would not mind paying, however, a fair price to be robot-chauffeured when I really need the point-to-point convenience of a private vehicle.  I admit this is utopian thinking, but here’s what I envision may someday become a reality.

Let’s say I’m living in Los Angeles.  I want to go visit my son in Oregon.  I put in a call for a ride and five minutes later a pod vehicle (small, because it’s only for a solo rider, but pods to accommodate a large group are also available) arrives at my curbside, the door opening automatically.  I step inside, program my destination, sit down; I’m by myself.  There’s no driver, no steering wheel, no controls other than a touch screen, and maybe a Big Red Panic Button.  The door closes and the pod moves along the suburban streets and makes its way to a main local traffic artery, where it joins up train-like with other pods and picks up speed.  This pod group then connects to a long-distance, non-stop track and really cranks up speed.  As we go along some pods leave the train, their destinations close by.  Eventually mine leaves the super track, diverts to a main local traffic artery, subsequently down from there to neighborhood streets, and pulls up in front of my son’s house.  The door opens, I pick up my luggage, step out, and the pod moves off, back into dispatch control.  This trip is about 650 land miles.  I just did it in about two hours, nearly as fast as a commercial airliner could make the trip.  But I never had to worry about falling out of the sky or going through any kind of security checks or suffering lost baggage.  The longest distance I’ve had to walk is curb-to-front door.

Oh, and I didn’t waste my time during the trip, either.  I thought up a few more crazy ideas, and wrote ‘em down, for future Saturday Morning Open Thread.  And I watched this: