介绍:
LW: It seems cars are getting smarter and smarter. A recent hit and run car crash ended with a twist: the offending car called the police to report the crash. Brian, tell us exactly what happened here. What’s the story behind this?
BK: Well, not to hit on them too hard but it comes from a particular state in the southeast of the States. It’s a little infamous for wacky things – Florida. And so we got this person, driving down the road, rear ends another car, and then runs off, just drives off. The person gets [LW: Shameful] yeah, the person gets injured. Right after that, her car, which has this system that automatically does these things, it calls 911, and says I’ve been – this car has been in an accident; press zero if you’d like to talk to the person. And the person on 911 presses zero, talks to the person, and the driver denies it: no, no, no, there was just a car who came out in front of me too quickly, and they went home. Later on the police goes to the driver’s house, finds her car’s beaten up, has paint on the front of it that matches the paint on the car that was hit, and then she tried to deny it still, but eventually said, yeah, okay, it was me. And apparently this system probably had actually been installed by her at some point, because, again, it seems like a good safety idea.
LW: It ended up being her undoing. It gets a little kinkier towards the end as well, there…
BK: Oh, yeah, it was bad. So the person she hit ended up going to the hospital, nothing too serious it seems, but [the] driver themselves, after they were arrested, also went to the hospital and walked by the person they had hit [LW: Oh my word], which is, awkward, to say the least.
WY: I think it is better for men to directly control the car, but with the better assist[ance] of the modern technology.
LW: Yeah, and definitely as well, I mean, if you don’t – we love cars, I love cars specifically…
WY: But after hearing your guys’ debate about it, I would choose whether I want to drive by myself or choose those kind of cars that can drive for you.
BK: That can drive with you or for you.
LW: In South Africa you have to have a different license for, like if you have a manual license you’re allowed to drive an automatic; if you have an automatic license you’re not allowed to drive a manual. Is that the case in the States?
BK: It is not, and that actually makes a certain amount of sense, because if you only know how to drive automatic, you cannot drive stick, like that’s just not going to work there. But in the US, it’s just a license, [LW: Really?] if you can drive a car, you have a license to drive a car, that’s it.
LW: That’s very interesting.
WY: But to the second face of the story, we talk about automatic driving; we must come to the story about complete self-driving. So, Lincoln, are you for or against it?
LW: Oh, I’m 100% against the self-driving car.
BK: Well, whether or not you’re for or against it, it’s probably going to be here at some point.
LW: It’s probably going to be here at some point. I don’t think it’s going to be here anytime soon – I think the technology is not, it’s maybe a bit too expensive at this…
BK: It’s not ready yet, either. Like they, like for example, Google and other companies, they have cars that can self-drive, and they actually had a couple accidents with them. But all the accidents they had were when it was the person driving the car, and the car’s computer was turned off. So the cars are actually pretty darn good there, they’re better than the people.
LW: Yeah, but the problem with that is, even if the car is at its best, it doesn’t account for that the fact that not everyone’s going to do that, you know what I mean. You could have, maybe ten self-driving cars, but everyone else is not going to be driving self-driving cars, because the thing is this, and this is, this is what my father always told me about driving, is you have to assume that the other person in the other car is an idiot. They might make a mistake and then you, you’re gone with that person, even though you didn’t make a mistake.
BK: Exactly, and that’s why you have to wear a seatbelt – regardless of yourself, other people are not, and you have to assume they’re not necessarily going to be any good there.
WY: And also some comments online saying maybe in the future if all those kind of complete self-driving cars are in the market, people can release their hands, they can read a book while they are in the car and they can make the phone call and they can…
LW: Okay, please Wu You…
BK: Oh but see that’s the thing – it would be like you’re just taking a taxi without a driver.
WY: Yes.
LW: Well, we’ll find out more about that in due time, and whether Brian or not will actually learn how to drive.
