Rage Against The Machine: Killing In The Name Of

With the advent of autonomous cars, Karl wonders if you should even be on the road if you can’t even steer your car back into lane!

Whether you’re an adult or a child, there’s always something to get out of a Pixar film. For kids, it may be the slapstick humour or the way the characters speak. For adults, though, there’s usually a moral to take away from it. And one film in particular is almost prophetic in its vision.

WALL·E sees a future of lazy, virtually immobile humans, relying on machines to carry out almost every whim and fancy. As a result, these lethargic people have ended up as fat slobs, believing that being slaved for is the best way of life. Why do it yourself when you can let a machine do it for you?

The problem with that line of thinking is that it’s not just limited to a fantasy burned to a Blu Ray disc. As we move toward autonomous vehicles, we’re doing less and less of the driving and relying more and more on our cars to cater for our inabilities. At the recent launch of the Audi Q7, it was touted as the closest thing to a self-driving car as we can get given worldwide legislation hadn’t quite caught up with technology. And certainly, after driving it for a week, you can see how much it tries to suppress any possibility of an accident.

The blind-spot warning flashes madly if you indicate too early when overtaking, the lane guidance steers you into the lane, the distance control warns you if it thinks you’re getting too close to the car in front, and the self parking system enables you to parallel park without using your bumpers to feel your way in.

The sentiment is noble – humans account for almost all errors on our roads. Therefore, if we remove the squidgy, imperfect lifeform from the equation, accidents should cease. But the problem with that logic is that there will still be people driving on our roads who aren’t in an autonomous vehicle, and the meshing of the two modes of transport could prove fatal.

The other problem is what to do with bikes. Once self-driving cars are legalised, the next logic is to ban all other forms of driving. Since autonomous motorcycles are a long way off, are bikers just going to relinquish their right to ride? Hardly. And if they’re on our roads, there’s another accident waiting to happen. Except bike riders are generally very switched on – they have to be, or they’ll end up dead. So, why can’t car drivers be the same?

So here’s the issue. With more and more tech-laden vehicles taking away our ability to make proper decisions while driving, we become more reliant on them. Cars are being built for people who can’t drive properly. Why on earth would you want a car to steer you back into your lane? If you can’t keep a vehicle within its allotted lane, then you shouldn’t be on the road. If you can’t turn your head to check a blind spot, then you don’t deserve to drive. And if you can’t judge how far in front a car is, then please hand in your licence now.

The first time you ride a bicycle, you’re taught about the value of judgement, especially when crossing the road. No machine takes over for you, so why should driving be any different.

Catering for the lowest common denominator is a stupid way to design cars. Sure, we need active and passive safety, but learning how to drive properly should be our first priority. Like the band name, we need to rage against the machine.