I’ve made it no secret I loathe the very idea of self-driving cars. The techie nerds can wax poetic about how mapping and apps and laser-guided whatever will ensure our streets will be safer, cleaner, less congested places where human error is no longer a factor in the 40,000 car-caused fatalities in the US each year.
Sorry, but I don’t buy it. This is another Titanic – smaller, sinking slower, but sinking everywhere all at once. We don’t need Green Cars or Smart Cars. We need better transit, we need more bikes. We need to start fucking walking.
I’ve read so many goddamn CityLab and NextCity and HuffPoGreen articles about how self-driving cars will rescue us from the consumer dystopian future we’re so sure will come to pass I could puke. Apparently, somebody out there has had a similar reaction.
Published all in one afternoon, the fine folks (or folk?) behind the Queen Anne Greenways Twitter account mercilessly mocked the zeitgeist hype of driverless cars, hilariously imagining all the ways these computer-controlled autos could – and likely will – actually fail.
Below in their entirety, in order, The Doomsday Self-Driving Car Scenario List.
With 2015 nearly over and all eyes looking towards a brighter future, I wonder if 2016 is the year self-driving cars destroy the world.
— Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 1: To save money on parking, people let their cars circle the block downtown all day. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 2: Unexpected re-boots kill thousands.
— Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 3: Rich people buy dozens of cars and send them to run errands all day. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 4: Instead of dispersed crashes like we have now, systemic software glitches cause thousands at once.
— Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 6: Computers gain self-awareness. Self-driving cars make perfect hosts.
— Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 7: Unfettered by safety concerns, cars become massive rolling entertainment capsules. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 8: Governments spend billions on research and infrastructure but the benefits never materialize.
— Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 9: Auto traffic becomes more like *internet* traffic: mostly unnecessary and 40% porn-related. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 10: Self-driving doesn’t mean self-fueling. Stalled, driverless vehicles litter the roadways.
— Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 11: Self-driving doesn’t mean self-repairing. Poorly maintained equipment still kills thousands. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 12: Everything works great until a sensor wire comes loose. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 13: Braking distance is the same whether the car is self-driving or not. Peds learn the hard way. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 14: Peds crossing everywhere causes permanent gridlock, which is “fixed” by restrictive ped laws. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 15: Stopping all traffic is as simple as placing a lifelike doll at a few intersections. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 16: Now that you can sleep in your car, a three-hour SOV commute becomes feasible. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 17: Long, private, pleasant SOV commutes make sprawl more attractive. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 18: Traffic deaths drop to 0. Yay! So, no reason to address pollution, noise or ugly streetscapes, ever. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 19: Efficiencies gained by “bunching” induce demand that completely offsets all efficiencies. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 20: Self-driving delivery requires menacing robotic solution to the “curb-to-door problem.” — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 21: Human-driven cars quickly outwit the automated ones, completely neutralizing their benefits. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 22: Only the worst drivers keep their human-driven car. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 23: Enthusiasm for self-driving cars fuels outcry for more dedicated car space. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 24: They divert investment away from things we already know work. Like transit. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 25: Instead of mailing parcels across town, everyone just sends cars there and back. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 26: Carmakers develop new horns to make loud, complex announcements: “I’m here to pick you up, Janice!” — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 27: They become the ideal platform for rolling billboards, which become cheaper and proliferate. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
.@QAGreenways is having too much fun today. — Jesse Piedfort (@jessepiedfort) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 28: Driverless but not carbon-free. The mechanism causing climate change has simply been automated. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 29: Two words: Road drones. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 30: Instead of taking shape of regular car seats, American butts take shape of *self-driving* car seats. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 31: Chevy unironically unveils model equipped with stationary bike so you can exercise while you commute. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 32: An hour on hold with tech support figuring out how to park in a field at the fairgrounds. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 33: Interaction with emergency vehicles proves problematic. Police given universal kill switch. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 34: Volkswagen decides to make one. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 35: To save money on parking, cars commute twice for each person, once at 8:00am and once at 5:00pm. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 36: Car manufacturers work hard to write algorithms that outwit competing algorithms. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 30, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 37: US government demands “back door” into all car sensor data. Opens new data mining possibilities. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 31, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 38: America’s “love affair” with the car is rekindled for yet another century. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 31, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 39: Two words: Apple Maps. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 31, 2015
Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenario 40: Almost nobody buys one, so I just wasted 40 tweets. — Queen Anne Greenways (@QAGreenways) December 31, 2015
So there it is. Many truths are spoken in jest, and the truth is this: automated automobiles will be in many ways an even bigger disaster than human-controlled cars have already been. The future demands we stop trying to fix problems with bigger problems.
See you in the streets.
•••
Four self-driving cars have crashed in California, report reveals
Several of the 48 self-driving cars on Californian roads have crashed Some were operated by Google, with another car being an Audi But both companies said their cars had not been at fault in the accidents Most of the crashes were caused by human drivers in the car In both the UK and the US, policy makers are in the process of changing legislation to allow self-driving cars to be used on public roads commercially.
•••
Pingback: Today’s Headlines | Streetsblog Los Angeles