U.S. prepares for car ‘zombie apocalypse’

Zombie cars? Seriously? Who in their right mind thinks this is a problem? It’s bad enough that my kid’s friends all talk about zombies as if they’re real, arguing about the undead — how to kill them, the ramifications of mating with the undead and, perhaps more importantly, if the coming zombie apocalypse might curtail their fast food dining — as if this might be a situation they will actually face in real life.

And if you thought John Wayne playing Genghis Khan was a cinematic stretch too far, how about Abraham Lincoln versus Zombies, in which the 10- year- old future saviour of the American republic beheads his mother with a scythe because, well, he thinks she might be turning into the walking dead.

Now I get why a typical 10- year- old might be afraid of what Merriam- Webster defines as the “will- less and speechless human,” but exactly how a car can be invaded by West Indian supernatural voodoo powers is just another part of the zombie thing I don’t understand.

Nonetheless, “zombie” cars would appear to be a problem — one stoking so much fear in Massachusetts that it has been deemed worthy of a bill calling for, if not the extinction of zombie cars, at least the taxing of them.

“Zombie” cars, as defined by Massachusetts Democratic state senator Jason Lewis, are self- driving cars that drive around city streets — one presumes aimlessly and without mission — so their owners don’t have to pay parking fees. Lewis doesn’t seem so much worried about the consequences of zombie cars roaming streets as ensuring that the “driving dead” pay their share of road taxes.

Ostensibly, this tax on self- driving is a result of the reduced gas tax self- driving cars will pay. Lewis’s bill also mandates that all future self- driving cars in the Bay State be electric. But, here’s the thing: the bill would increase the basic 2.5 centa- mile tariff specifically for autonomous “zombie” ( yes, according to the Worcester Business Journal, the senator used that word) automobiles for “each mile driven without a passenger.”

Now it would be easy to assume this infestation of aimlessly wandering Fords might be around the corner. But the truth is you probably won’t be able to buy a car that can drive around a city’s core by itself for at least a decade. And it will be probably be another 15 years after that before they become, well, a problem large enough to merit Lewis’s paranoia.

The most advanced autonomy commercially available now is — as defined by the American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — level II, which are cars that provide aid to the driver but whose automated functions must be constantly monitored by a human. Even next- gen experimental cars, are what’s deemed Level III and IV, the best of which are “designed to perform all safety- critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip.” But even the most advanced of these experimental vehicles still require a driver behind the wheel and are hardly ready to drive autonomously in difficult circumstances.

Before a car can drive around “will- less,” in downtown city cores, it will have to achieve the U. S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Level V. This allows “the full-time performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task under all roadway and environmental conditions that can be managed by a human driver.”

In other words the technology will have to increase three levels from the most advanced, high- tech Mercedes-Benz being sold today. And that is something that just isn’t happening soon.

Even after such cars are introduced, it will be another decade or two before they find widespread adoption.

The “zombie car” apocalypse is not upon us.