Self-Driving Cars Will Make Organ Shortages Even Worse

Slate ^ | December 30, 2016 | Ian Adams and Anne Hobson

[Zakeet]

Much has been said about the ways we expect our oncoming fleet of driverless cars to change the way we live—remaking us all into passengers, rewiring our economy, retooling our views of ownership, and reshaping our cities and roads.

They will also change the way we die. As technology takes the wheel, road deaths due to driver error will begin to diminish. It's a transformative advancement, but one that comes with consequences in an unexpected place: organ donation.

[Snip]

It's not difficult to do the math on how driverless cars could change the equation. An estimated 94 percent of motor-vehicle accidents involve some kind of a driver error. As the number of vehicles with human operators falls, so too will the preventable fatalities. In June, Christopher A. Hart, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said, "Driverless cars could save many if not most of the 32,000 lives that are lost every year on our streets and highways." Even if self-driving cars only realize a fraction of their projected safety benefits, a decline in the number of available organs could begin as soon as the first wave of autonomous and semiautonomous vehicles hits the road—threatening to compound our nation’s already serious shortages.

[Fightin Whitey]

Dude..if you’re measuring by the yard, you got nuthin’ to worry about!

[Yardstick]

I wish! The only thing I measure by the yard is my nose hair...

[eyedigress]

Libtards are amazing. The less people die the more people die.

[GingisK]

Auto landing equipment makes a better landing than a human pilot. It can measure and adjust yaw/pitch/roll, rate of decent, and crosswind drift angles every few milliseconds and perform minute corrections at that rate. Human pilots are now around as a safety measure against equipment failure.

Vending machines are not particularly sophisticated when compared to jumbo jets and the like.

[GingisK]

Self-driving cars will never happen.

Neither did self operated lathes and milling machines.

[central_va]

We cant even automate trains and they ride on rails.

[MortMan]

I know the quality of software running these cars. The liability for manufacturers will be astronomical, and the lawsuits will be flying.

[MortMan]

AI doesn’t always learn based on the right lessons, either. An AI trained to detect camouflaged tanks in satellite photos from Germany was counting leaves, so was useless in the desert.

[LouieFisk]

Meh. This all reminds me of how we were all supposed to be flying around in Jetson's-like air-autos by now. Back to the self-driving auto problems; Even more bad news.. . "Self-Driving Cars Can Be Hacked with ‘Just $43 and a Laser Pointer" http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/12/30/report-self-driving-cars-can-hacked-just-43

[GingisK]

We can automate trains. They choose not to automate trains. The railroad union is very strong. There must be a fireman in the locomotive, yet there hasn’t been a firebox to tend since the late 1940s.

[GingisK]

More important to me is that I like to drive. I will resist automating the car simply for that reason.

Automating cars is technically feasible, and there are working prototypes that prove the point. Tesla cars can auto-drive. To do it right means that car repair shops will have to employ more sophisticated people. Good luck on that.