Should the Blind Be Able to Drive Automated Vehicles?

By Matt Peckham April 15, 2013 ** autonomous: self-driving

Its probably unavoidable: the point at which someone legally forbidden today from manually operating a motor vehicle on public roadways someone legally blind, that is, whether fully or partially unsighted can pop into an automobile and ease on down the road, be it swinging by a food joint to grab lunch or winding for hours along a open highway, say the Rocky Mountain toll road on the way up to Pikes Peak. Whether its in one of Googles much-hyped automated vehicles or someone elses take on the technology hardly matters. But as the BBC notes, it wont be as simple as pronouncing self-driving cars roadworthy and handing over the keys to anyone with the desire to drive. The idea of losing self-driving cars on U.S. roadways piloted by sighted drivers can seem controversial enough. What if the autonomous driving system malfunctions somehow? What if it completely fails? The engine light in my non-autonomous 2011 VW Jetta wagon occasionally pops on mistakenly and the tire pressure gauge requires recalibrating any time I drop the car off for service, refusing to recognize the topped up PSI levels as valid. Lemons aside, weve probably all at one time or another driven a vehicle prone to mysterious fits (if not outright tantrums). Imagine adding something as sophisticated as full vehicular automation to the equation.

And yet the arguments in favor of selfdriving cars are many: computer-sorted traffic could yield higher maximum speeds and optimized drive times (sayonara stop and go, hello increased fuel efficiency!), the option to drive whether youve had too much to drink or not and driverless valet park anywhere you go (as well as make better use of parking space no more sloppy two-forone parking jobs). Imagine your vehicle driving itself off to a maintenance facility without your assistance, returning home on its own, or the option to be as distracted as you like while your vehicles escorting you around, from texting to watching a video to catching up on your notes for a morning work meeting. In theory, an exhaustively thorough autonomous driving system would result in fewer traffic accidents, with computers responding to navigational information far more reliably (and accurately) than a human could. Even a hybrid scenario in which both autonomous and humandriven vehicles shared the road might be safer, with self-driven vehicles capable of reacting more quickly (and optimally) to life-threatening situations, say responding to a vehicle braking hard ahead, racing over a sudden swatch of black ice or avoiding an oncoming vehicle along a divided highway that suddenly rockets across the median toward you. Think of all the traffic incidents (and deaths) caused by drivers ignoring stoplights or stop signs, clipping or directly slamming into vehicles that have the right of way. Spatially aware autonomous vehicles might be capable of sensing a vehicle approaching at clearly unsafe speeds before proceeding through an intersection. Its not that autonomous vehicles would be guaranteed accidentfree, but the idea that theyd be much less

http://techland.time.com/2013/04/15/should-the-blind-be-able-to-drive-automated-vehicles/

likely to have accidents, better able to react to life-threatening situations than more error-prone humans. Assuming thats all technically possible in the near term, think of how impactful autonomous vehicles might be on those for whom operation of a motorized vehicle is legally not allowed. According to the National Federation of the Blind, over 25 million adults in the U.S. aged 18 or older qualify as blind (defined by the United States Bureau of the Census as significant vision loss and trouble seeing, even when wearing glasses or contact lenses). Thats roughly onetwelfth of the population. Think of the economic consequences alone if we could give this group the same travel flexibility sighted drivers currently enjoy. I have a legally blind friend who lives in Minneapolis. His powers of memory are astonishing. Toss out a pair of cross streets and hell tell you precisely how many blocks to your next turn or destination. Hes like a human GPS like one of those people that can play chess in their heads. He keeps track of each street and location like positions on a checkerboard. And yet hes been dependent all his life on public transportation, essentially forced to live in a city with an elaborate public

transportation system, his employment options limited to easy to get to destinations (and even then, forced to make lengthy commutes go back and forth - for many a choice, but for him the only option). Imagine a world in which he could hop in his own vehicle and go anywhere, anytime. Google pitched this very idea in a video last year, showing Santa Clara Valley Blind Center honcho Steve Mahan driving an autonomous car to grab a bite to eat and later picking up some dry cleaning. Look ma, no hands! says Mahan as the car uses radar, lasers and GPS data to stop at or glide through intersections. As the BBC notes, Googles self-driving cars have logged about 300,000 accident-free miles to date, making them safer than the average driver, statistically. Assuming a company like Google can clear the remaining technical hurdles, are we prepared to give people with visual challenges the legal right to travel anywhere in an autonomous vehicle? Mahan certainly thinks so: What will happen is [that people] will not get comfortable with blind people driving, they will get comfortable with the capabilities of self-driving cars that sighted people will be using.

http://techland.time.com/2013/04/15/should-the-blind-be-able-to-drive-automated-vehicles/