Intelligent Cars
Intel are working on the idea of intelligent cars.
The car, which is being developed by researchers at computer chip giant Intel, will record information about the vehicle speed, steering and braking along with video footage from inside and outside the vehicle.
This would be automatically sent to police and insurance companies in the event of an accident to make it easier to determine the cause of car crashes and identify the person responsible.
Great, terrific. I’m sure that while this might help the police and insurance companies, don’t expect premiums to come down any-time soon. However, apart from my general dislike of ordinary vehicles being fitted with black boxes, more worrying are the plans to take control from the driver.
Camera systems that can recognise street signs and then take over control of a car if the motorist tries to drive the wrong way up a one-way street, for example, are being developed for use in vehicles.
I don’t care how intelligent these cars are made, ultimately, it is the driver who is best placed to make decisions about prevailing conditions and the appropriate action to take in the event of an incident – including a mistake on their own part. A car that suddenly takes over is potentially highly dangerous. The justification offered for this is given later in the article:
With vision systems on cars, it is perfectly reasonable for a car on its own to see the sign that says ‘wrong way’ or ‘do not enter’ and bring the vehicle to a halt at the side of the road so we don’t have these senseless accidents where someone has failed to recognise a sign.
And just how many of these accidents are there? Enough to justify taking control of our vehicles? I very much doubt it. And, frankly, I’ll never buy a vehicle that has the capability to take away driving control.
The intelligent vehicle is what we are talking about here. Once a car is connected, more or less on a continuous basis, all sorts of interesting possibilities present themselves.
Including unexpected consequences. Unexpected for them, anyway. For those of us with common sense, they are entirely predictable.
Insurance companies are expected to welcome on-board car systems that will reduce the risk of accidents.
A spokesman for the Association of British Insurers said that aviation style black box technology for recording the circumstances around accidents could also help speed up payouts by reducing delays in determining causes of accidents.
He said: “Insurance companies are always looking at new in car technology. A system like this could certainly help speed up the process of determining the cause and responsibility of an accident.”
As a general rule of thumb, if insurance companies like something, it’s likely to be a bad idea. They’ve floated this idea of black box technology before and doubtless will again. I will never allow my movements to be tracked by these people no matter what justification they try to come up with.
Don’t get me wrong; technology can be really useful – the idea of picking up vehicles in the blind spot, for example, is fine. But any attempt to track our movements or take over control of the vehicle while it is being driven is way off limits.
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