Flor
Thanks for posting this story.
While I don't wish to burst anyone's buble or hopes, I seriously doubt
that this approach to driving, if it proves implementable in the near
term, will mean little to the blind. The goals of the developers have
nothing to do with this hope; and the cost of such equipped vehicles will
prove insurmountable for the typical blind consumer.
Right now, the U.S. and much of the rest of the world have far more
critical issues to deal with and resolve than automated driving cars.
And even if the technology can be proven viable, there are a set of issues
that go far beyond viability when it comes to actually having these cars
travel roadways with drivers behind the wheel, say nothing of drivers not
qualified or able to handle these cars in an instance when things fail.
Dan cites his concerns about typical drivers; well, I'd be even more
worried by non-attentioning paying drivers who will tangentially have to
take responsibility in the event of failure.
And even if we can get beyond this based on years of actual road
experience of these cars, I doubt that allowing just anyone to operate an
automated vehicle is in the realm of expectation at least in this time and
place.
The story Flor posts should serve us as a reminder that technology, in all
its wonders, still can require human oversight and intervention upon
occasion.
Eliminating that oversight will not happen until years, and perhaps
decades, have passed showing that humans are not necessary in the
equation.
And with our current economic situation, there are not going to be funds
available for this kind of playing around. Those days may well be over
given the deficit
the President and Congress have saddled us with.
While Harry seems to dismiss the insurance comapny issues, I cannot see,
in the short-term, them allowing just anyone to purchase coverage. The
responsibility for operating the vehicle must remain with the individual
in the driver's seat; and they are hardly going to insure someone
incapable of instantaneously overriding the automated systems when things
will go awry.
I see a place for such vehicles potentially; but that place, at least for
the near term, is not with blind "drivers."
That may ultimately come, but that is a long way off.
Sorry but that just doesn't seem reasonable to me.
The real measure of our wealth is how much we should be worth if we lost our money.
John Henry Jowett - (1864-1923), English Congregational pastor
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
Archived on the World Wide Web at
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
Signoff: [log in to unmask]
Subscribe: [log in to unmask]
|