In recent news, over 20 automakers recently declared their intention to add automatic emergency breaking to their vehicles by 2022. This is big news, and a significant leap forward to technology based safety. But many automotive purists have been questioning if all the technology has taken the job of driving away from us. People may soon lose the very basic driving skills many currently take for granted. Automatic parallel parking is already quite prolific. Safety features like lane assist and automatic cruise control are essentially widespread through the market. Now, with emergency breaking on the way, what’s left for the human driver to do but steer.
Perhaps there needs to be a change in mindset. Driving as a form of mass transportation can be dangerous. The source of that danger, as a recent Google SUV crash demonstrated, is the human behind the wheel. As automotive engineers have striven to make cars safer, it may have become clear to them at some point that they’d reached a limit. Airbags and seat belts could only do so much. Crumple zones and space frames still had their breaking points. To make cars safer, they had to start removing the human element.
What is, then, the future of driving? As technology becomes the new air bag, where will the days of driving for pleasure go? Technology will save the lives of many, undoubtedly, and it has the potential to vastly improve driving as a mass transportation method. The driving mindset as we know it, humans in control of machines, needs to change. Commuting to work will be done autonomously, safely. But, hopefully, when one takes their car off the public highways, they can flip a technology kill switch. Drivers can, for a brief moment, enjoy being in control of their vehicle again. For a moment in time, people will control machine again. It will be done at great risk, and only the brave will do it. Once the driver’s itch has been scratch, they will engage their safety technology and rejoin the driving public.
You wouldn’t, after all, drive around with your airbags disabled, or seat belts removed.
Technology is the future of automotive safety. The driving public should be embracing what potential it brings. However, in their pursuit of safety, let’s hope automotive engineering doesn’t forget about that one aspect that made humanity fall in love with cars: going for a drive.