Self-drive cars too risky

In Full Speed ahead for self-drive vehicles (August 24), Transport Minister Simon Bridges is reported as wanting NZ to be trialling selfdrive cars by year’s end, and ‘‘...this technology isn’t science-fiction and is happening ... [We] want to have New Zealand perceived as a testbed where these things can be tried’’.

About the safety issues The Dominion Post explains: ‘‘[Bridges] was adamant that the technology, once refined, would reduce the numbers of people killed ...’’

This is an extremely irresponsible position to take. It’s not a matter of refining existing technology. The systems running self-drive cars can’t do the most elementary things humans do almost instantly. Specially, they can’t recognise objects. Researchers don’t even know how human recognition works. They don’t even know the principles. They have no idea, at the level needed to program a computer, how we come to understand our environment.

The statistics for self-drive cars so far racked up have been in very controlled situations usually on motorways. It’s not a matter of refining anything. It’s matter of complete ignorance of what it takes to make a system that can control fast, heavy, deadly machines in unpredictable conditions without killing people.

Bridges wants to see NZ a testbed for self-drive cars. That’s fine if it’s done responsibly without promoting deadly hype. But saying that safety is only a matter of refining the existing technology shows that he’s succumbed to the marketing hype, doesn’t understand the technology, and has no real idea how dangerous existing self-drive car systems really are.

ROD SMITH

Khandallah