Driverless Cars

Even as Google and Tesla are racing towards proving the technology used in their Driverless Cars or Self-Driving Car (let us call it DC) and commence commercial production of these contraptions, this scribe has a few gnawing doubts.  While such cars may be more suitable to the driving conditions and roads of USA and some advanced countries, they are bound to compound the chaos on Indian roads, should they be introduced here too.  And, given the penchant of the moneyed and the class-conscious Indians to mindlessly mimic those countries, such cars will arrive on Indian roads sooner or later, regardless of their suitability to our conditions - just because we like to show off.

Imagine DC handling some unique challenges posed by Indian roads.  An officer, miffed with his wife after an especially trying session of viscerally verbal pyrotechnics, may retaliate and decide to unilaterally convert a two-way street into one-way, without any notice to anyone.  A traffic light which normally works well as it is programmed to, will get manually over-ridden at the busiest hour by an egotistical officer who entertains enormous aversion towards anything automatic evading his control, just to demonstrate to himself who the boss is.  A senior politician's visit to a member of his harem may trigger a sudden two-mile long traffic snarl on a usually somnolent road. Or a convoy of slow-moving cows with their numerous progeny in attendance, might deceive the unsuspecting system in DC and cause a malfunction. The intelligent and perceptive readers of this blog may undoubtedly bring up umpteen other similar India-manufactured intricacies in traffic conditions, which will bamboozle the best structured platforms of the expensive DC.

Then this scribe came across another article detailing how the DC will exercise its choice in case of an accident, resulting in danger to the occupants of the car or to those outside.  Simply stated, such a decision will be preordained by the car-maker and hard coded into the DNA of DC, of course following some logic.  Meaning, the occupants, in the absence of a driver, will be at the mercy of the algorithm built in, which may be coded to save the lives of people outside in the path of the DC rather than its own occupants for some `moral/ethical' reasons.  Well, one may argue that this is probably no different from a situation where the driver will have to decide quickly which way to go, but the fact remains that the driver will probably choose to save himself along with the others in the car, whereas the algorithm may have no such predilection!  In India, road accidents being an almost government sanctioned device of attrition to whittle down population to some extent (that explains why driving licences are given out indiscriminately, sometimes to even non-existent people, against bribes), such a feature may not alarm the public or discourage sale of DC.  So, the focus in the following sections are on rather non-serious aspects of DC in India, as and when that happens.

Those who buy DC in India would want it primarily for a trophy, but may not entirely go driver-less because of the depreciation dent that brings in their status.  For instance, when the owner gets down, the driver has to come around and open the door for him or his wife, since most owners would have, by now, forgotten how to open car doors.  While having a DC may enhance self-esteem in these people, being driver-less would peg them back a few notches, which would be unacceptable.  How would this conundrum be solved??  Simple.  The driver would metamorphose into `Transportation Manager' and would occupy the front passenger seat!  He cannot anyway be dispensed with, since the master would not deign to perform the menial function of punching in co-ordinates, trip data etc into the system.   The primary difference this would make to others on the road is that the door which the driver opens when the car is in motion and spews spit on the road will change!  Also, the status conscious DC owner would hate to park the car about hundred metres away and trundle to the destination, since that wound unnecessarily burn some flab in the carefully nurtured body of the owner.  One may argue that it is possible the car would be wired to probably automatically find a parking lot and settle down, if the owner so desires.  That may be so, but after dropping the owner, if it happens to be a ten-level parking lot in a mall, how would the owner know where the car is?  Can he summon it like he would summon his dog?  Dogs have exceptional sense of smell, through which they interpret their whole world, but DC will have such extraordinary connectivity to the owner??  Hopefully Google is thinking about that.

Can software glitches make the DC run amok??  Come to think of it, this is something akin to a driver having a heart attack and passing out while having to control the car on the road.  If something untoward results, who is responsible? Under usual circumstances, the driver cops the punishment, even if the boss was driving the normal car by using the proven-through-the-ages proxy rule, in exchange for some booty to set the driver up for life.  But in this context, there is no driver; the boss does not steer the car; car is self-driving, for god's sake.  So, the car goes to jail??  May be the software engineer, who is deemed culpable??  Or just the software?? This author's hope is that a case should be filed to determine this rather crucial matter before the government allows DC in India.  That should do for the next two decades, knowing how fast cases are concluded in our courts.

Some other sundry thoughts:

** DC will be made so sensitive (equipped with powerful sensors) that it probably would stop every time some other vehicle cuts into its path.  This will result in the ridiculous situation of the DC being stationary more often than mobile in our environment, since most drivers in India cannot move hundred yards without dangerously veering sideways.

**In the first few months, there would be numerous reports in the rural areas of ghosts driving expensive cars and a special police team would be required to assuage the anxieties of the folks.  Tantriks could smell an opportunity and make a pile doing the assuaging after the police team has finished.

**If a non-driver is tasked with ensuring that the DC follows the desired route and this person falls asleep, what happens?  A driver is less likely to doze off (at least theoretically so), but someone with not even a wheel to grip and turn around might easily fall prey to `innocent sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care', with some undesirable consequences.

**Is it likely that Uber would run some DCs as cabs?  This possibility opens up an entire vista of scenarios and this author has no intention of insulting the intelligence of the readers by dwelling on them.  Best left to imagination.  Having said that, driver-less auto-rickshaws would be very welcome, unless the crooked but ingenious owners manipulate the manufacturer to programme the vehicles to refuse to take passengers, charge multiples of metre fare and generally behave like their `driven' tribe. But any attempt to let the driver-less auto-rickshaws use the footpaths should be summarily rejected, to optimize the benefit to the populace.

** Some would rather enjoy the DC experience - those who are inveterate back-seat drivers (men and women) and those who constantly educate men how to improve their driving - as a force of habit - without having driven a car themselves in their lives (women only).

** It looks like the DC would not have a steering wheel or pedals for brake and accelerator.  In order to sell in India, the makers should take care to provide at least a horn somewhere in the car.  Without the toot, DC will not sell, market research would hopefully tell them.  Cars without brakes are okay, but without horns are a strict No, No, in India.

By now, one should be disoriented.  Just as this author's head started spinning uncontrollably at an `rpm' hitherto never experienced, the lady who brought light into his life, his dear wife came to the rescue one more time and shined a torch on an absolute gem of a redeeming line in the article about DC in general -- the technology in DC cannot yet recognize pot-holes on the roads.  Hurrah!!  Three cheers!!  India will not see DC for a few decades at the least, since a pot-hole-less Indian road is just unimaginable, against our tradition and Vedas, a stark violation of the order of creation; it might even be prohibited under the Constitution.  Who knows, the local government in Bangalore may unanimously decide not to fix any pot hole on the roads, just to keep the greater evil of DC at bay!!  Personally, given the general quality and skills of drivers, I prefer `car-less drivers'  to DCs!

Note:  The author's knowledge of DC is at best shallow.  So, those experts who are bristling to email expletive-laden comments may want to hold the horses and let this piece pass!!