UBER Starts Testing Self-Driving Cars in San Francisco
Happy Wednesday, dear readers!
As you may recall, your humble blogger reported that Uber was to deploy self-driving cars for a test run to Pittsburg. Well, this has been done and my diligent research is having a hard time finding any reports of incidents or accidents or the sky falling or even dogs and cats living together as a result.
But it looks like the UBER chickens are coming home to roost – sort of. More like robot chickens and they’re not really roosting… you know what? Forget the analogy altogether: UBER is testing self-driving cars on the lean, mean streets of San Francisco. So far, these cars cannot be hailed, but before you know it, you’ll be able to use your smart phone to get from point A to point B without having to interact with a single person!
Allow your humble blogger to attest, from personal experience, to the fact that if a robot can be programmed not to go on a murderous rampage after driving around San Francisco for a while then self-driving cars really SHOULD replace me behind the wheel.
Well, it’s not just your crackpot humble blogger that is excited about self-driving cars: Jeffrey Zients, director of the National Economic Council and Anthony Foxx, secretary of the United States Department of Transportation, seemed to speak very highly of the benefits of self-driving cars.
Already, we are seeing nay-sayers, such as this Op-ed doing the chicken-little routine, claiming that self-driving cars will “cost” 5 million jobs. As if sprinklers in homes “cost” us the jobs of homebuilders, modern medicine “cost” us the jobs of grave diggers, and light bulbs “cost” us the jobs of candle-makers. Certainly, laws against smashing windows on the street “cost” us the jobs of glaziers too.
Ultimately, what this will mean is that transportation will become more reliable and cheaper. Unfortunately for us in the comp industry, that means fewer claims, but let’s hope that the decreased risk of being hit by drunk or tired or distracted drivers makes up for it.
Full speed ahead, dear readers – Friday is just around the corner!