Attend any of the 2008 auto shows and you won't find one crash-free car, despite the fact that makers have the technology. That means another model year goes by and another year will pass in which 3,500 Americans will die on the roads each month with no end in sight.
Who's to blame? Ask any of the automakers why they allow their cars to crash and kill and they'll site the "human factor". In fact everyone who's aware of this technology, from safety experts to government policy makers, sites the human factor.
So let's examine the "human factor". It's an industry euphemism for "People won't like it." The "it" is really IT, Intelligent Transportation, which involves a huge array of integrated, technology systems in vehicles and the environment that do everything you can imagine, including drive our cars. It's easy to imagine and even prove with research that most American drivers of any generation would have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the idea of giving up driving to anyone, especially a computer system.
But who needs to give up driving to drive a crash-free car? Ask those same Americans if they'd want to drive in a world where they and other drivers drive cars that won't hit anything and their answer is just as easy to imagine. "Yes."
Can the quiet horror of our time be happening because we aren't asking the right question?
