Not very long ago, our country was introduced to so-called "Smart Motorways", a system in which the previous hard shoulders are automatically changed to 'running lanes' at times of congestion. It was claimed that this would ease the congestion and was entirely safe for road users. Today, we know that there have been numerous accidents and deaths arising directly from the lack of a safe refuge for drivers whose vehicles have broken down. The system is being reviewed further deployments are, I believe, suspended.
Despite this serious failure of technology it's now proposed to allow so-called self driving vehicles onto our motorways. Why anyone would want a self-driving vehicle is a question that that has yet to be asked, let alone answered, but the Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, simply claims that we cannot be left behind and must employ such technological advances. One wonders how many accidents and deaths there will have to be before this nonsense will also be dumped back where it belongs, on the rubbish heap with all the other failed "if it can be, it must be" projects.
However, there is another aspect to this latest suggestion which might just keep it going. By introducing 'self-driving' vehicles, governments may be taking us down a road that leads to total control of our movements. For a vehicle to be truly 'self driving' it has to be controlled; what better way to ensure this than to have some form of enhanced GPS doing the job ? All the driver would need to do would be to tell the vehicle where he, or she, wanted to go and the vehicle would do the rest, all under the control of some unseen hand. Speeding and jumping traffic lights would no longer be a problem; if any driver or passenger had the tiniest whiff of alcohol about them, the vehicle would refuse to move.
In time, such technology could even be deployed to decide that our journey was not necessary, was inappropriate or would add to already unacceptable levels of congestion or crowding somewhere along our route or at our destination. Our trip to Blackpool might be turned into one to Southend at the whim of a soul-less but all powerful computer and all in the cause of safety. Personal wants and desires, self will even the right to be wrong sometimes would be lost; the serendipitous finding of some unknown wonder while trying desperately to get back to the 'right road', would be a thing of the past.
There are things that technology can achieve that should be firmly rejected, and self-driving cars are right there at the top of my list of such horrors. In the words of Mrs Thatcher "no, No, NO !!".
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