For millions of drivers, a self-driving car is a threat. The technology has the ability to turn society upside down and reimagine how humans transport themselves and goods around the globe, but for those who enjoy driving, it threatens a hobby.
Two groups have emerged as “the resistance” against self-driving cars: Hagerty, the classic-car insurer, and the Human Driving Association. The Detroit Free Press reported on both organizations’ doings and how they want to do something about driving as a pleasure and a hobby now.
Hagerty CEO McKeel Hagerty recalled attending a car event when a self-driving car developer approached him. The stranger told Hagerty “I’m putting you out of business,” told the executive to prepare for a new future, and repeated his warning. Since then, Hagerty has set out to preserve driving.
He said driving and car culture mean something to millions of people around the world, and along with the newly formed Human Driving Association, they plan to preserve it. The resistance comes as sentiment towards self-driving cars has soured in recent years. Cox Automotive’s Evolution of Mobility study revealed half of the 1,250 respondents said they would “never” purchase a self-driving car.
Additionally, 68 percent of them said they would feel uncomfortable riding in a fully self-driving car, and 84 percent said they always want the option to drive themselves. Many experts agree that younger generations will embrace self-driving technology as most resistance of self-driving cars comes from those aged 40 and older, per the Cox study.
However, Hagerty set out to prove them wrong. The company commissioned a 1,000-person study targeting millennials to understand their feelings on the technology. In the study, 81 percent of those aged 22-37 said they “loved” and were “passionate” about cars. In another myth to be dispelled, respondents who held off on obtaining their driver’s license cited financial reasons rather than a lack of interest in driving.
“A lot of people think of it like property ownership and they have fond memories of road trips they took with their family,” Hagerty said. “For people who are passionate about driving and cars, it goes to being human.”
We won’t see self-driving cars proliferate overnight and it will likely be decades before they actually begin to replace traditional cars. However, if Hagerty and other groups have their way, driving won’t simply go the way of horseback riding.
Comments
“Hagerty CEO McKeel Hagerty recalled attending a car event when a self-driving car developer approached him. The stranger told Hagerty “I’m putting you out of business,” told the executive to prepare for a new future, and repeated his warning.”
For those who have classic cars (who I think would be highly unlikely to retrofit their cars with autonomous hardware), I don’t see how the coming autonomous car impacts Hagerty’s ability to insure older cars for the few who have them. For the near term, he’s overreacting.
Autonomous car will no doubt require insurance as does every single car on the road today. So rather than dig his heels in, Hagerty should expand his insurance options into the mainstream market.
I have no BA, nor any experience selling insurance to niche markets, but I don’t think a website for T-shirt sales and tiny Facebook group backed by an insurance provider is going to slow down, stop, and shrink a multi-billion dollar, multifaceted, multi-pronged approach to autonomous cars thereby prolonging Hagerty’s niche insurance business.
I don’t think that Haggerty is resisting AV, he is just coming against lowlife idiots like the one who confronted him at the car show- the people on the lunatic fringe that would take cars away from owners “for their own good.”
Self-driving CARS is an industry misdirection. No corporation cares about human life. Not even HMOs.
The interest here is self-driving TRUCKS. No normal human wants those giant trucks driving themselves and so, first, they must convince us we want self-driving cars.
“No normal human wants those giant trucks driving themselves”
As opposed to the intoxicated, overworked, tired, and stressed truckers who give a black eye to the entire industry that we already have?
You’re wrong. Normal people WANT self-driving trucks because they are predictable and not subject to human weaknesses while running against the clock.
Seriously?
You’ve never had your computer go down? Never had a cell phone die? Never taken a car in due to a computer recall? There is an entire industry called “computer technicians”, that make a living off of failed computers. Not a big deal, really. Until you put 10,000 pounds behind it and toss it down a road in a populated area.
Yes, a truck driver can fall asleep at the wheel. They can get drunk as you suggested. But lets face it… they will stop if they hit something and realize what they’ve done. A machine thats gone funky will not.
I dunno. I am over 40 and it would take a lot to convince me driverless cars are a good thing. A LOT. Damn John Connor and Skynet have forever ruined robot cars for me.
“You’ve never had your computer go down? Never had a cell phone die? Never taken a car in due to a computer recall?”
Of course I have. But the hardware we have today is far and away better than the computers you grew up to despise. Subsequently, nothing I’ve lost has been catastrophic, or even fatal.
Have you ever made back ups? Have you ever heard of a fail-safe? These are engineering terms that predate consumer computing by decades, and if the same engineering principles that make computers robust today can be applied to the coming autonomous car, then your argument is moot.
“There is an entire industry called “computer technicians”, that make a living off of failed computers. Not a big deal, really. Until you put 10,000 pounds behind it and toss it down a road in a populated area.”
Geez, I hope the autonomous engineer and programmers have designed fail-safes that prevent the truck from blindly driving headlong into other cars. If only they could be programmed to slow down, pull over, stop, put on their hazards, and tell a server somewhere that something is wrong, why then you wouldn’t have anything to worry about.
And that’s exactly what will happen.
If you’re worried about trucks that blindly drive headlong into other cars without stopping, find me an overworked or drunk/high trucker. They don’t have any fail-safes.
“But lets face it… they will stop if they hit something and realize what they’ve done.”
Not if their blasted off their face.
” A machine thats gone funky will not.”
Yes, it will, and consumer hardware of today already does have fail-safes that prevent damage to the system. 40 years of consumer computers have made it reality.
Lastly, I’d like to point out that John Connor and Skynet are completely fictional.
“Lastly, I’d like to point out that John Connor and Skynet are completely fictional.”
Was going to debate your points until I read this…
Your faith in the ability for humanity to control the uncontrollable through machines is noted. .
The fact that you cannot separate reality from Hollywood fiction from over 25 years ago is very telling.
The fact that you think a computer is “uncontrollable” tells me that you live in fear of any computational technology, or perhaps anything invented after 1975.
Alarmist, reactionary hippies like yourself were rightly ridiculed in the 1960’s, and your drug addictions were nothing if not a misleading escape mechanism from the realities of a first world, industrialized, nation that relies heavily on computer every waking second of every single day.
You’ve had over 40 years to get on board with this world. Instead, you’ve chosen the wrong path, but it’s everyone else’s fault but your own, right?
Driver pay and benefits, that is all the companies care about eliminating.
I personally really interested with the progress of these self-driving cars. They are really the future of our life, we can’t resist it. However, for now, I won’t risk my family to ride inside one of them, since the safety features haven’t been perfect. I really hope that car manufacturers would think seriously about perfecting the features before selling these cars to public, not until the safety features are guaranteed 99% perfect. I have just read an article at https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accident-injury-lawyers-attorneys/ about this topic.
They’ll never be perfect or even 99% perfect just like humans…They’ll be far safer when there are no longer human drivers but life can still happen, a deer can run out into front of a self driving car at highspeeds…
“a deer can run out into front of a self driving car at highspeeds…”
And the wide-angle cameras on the car that can see objects in spectrum’s of light that the human eye cannot see, spots the deer well in advance, and using predictive path algorithms, charts the intended path of the deer in the same way that a hunter would, and takes the best course of action.
That action can be slowing down well before the deer is too close, changing lanes, flashing the highbeams to alert the deer and thereby opening the possibly to keep the deer stationary long enough so that it can be avoided, and relaying this data to autonomous cars that are also approaching the deer and have yet to see it.
Really, there’s more options at hand for the autonomous car to simply crash into the deer as a human driver would do, but the advantages of using cameras with a wider field of vision and to see in spectums of light that we cannot see would be invaluable to an autonomous cars crash mitigation programming.
So far they have hit people, bicycles, motorcycles, busses………………
And people are doing that in their own cars right this second.
The difference here is that computer can learn how to drive better, and learn how to drive better from other autonomous cars through a shared database. Humans can’t do that, and what you have are people learning how to drive, but never improving upon their knowledge base over time.
Humans stagnate and their knowledge base fragments. Machine learning computers hunt for new knowledge and add to the base.
There is absolutely NO WAY that an algorithm can be created for every possible scenario that exists in daily driving. Take for example the case of a ball rolling into the street in front of a moving vehicle. Driver’s education taught us to expect a child running after that ball; will the computer take that same precaution – I think not.
You will ride socialized transport like everyone else, comrade.
It’s not socialized if it’s from an American corporation, is it?
Besides, there’s too many people on the roads, and they can’t all be educated to be better drivers. Nobody is going to accept more terrible drivers on their roads, and as a taxpayer, I don’t want inattentive and under-skilled drivers on my roads.
If every car was able to coordinate its actions with each other and move in tandem, I’d never see another terrible driver again.
That’s not socialism. That’s just getting rid of the human problems that come with driving.
The coming day when you are told what, when, and where to drive, you can call it socialism, or whatever else you want. For your own good you know.
Vague, nebulous, non-facts pretending to have political insight in a matter that is far removed from politics won’t change what is coming. Autonomous cars are simply too big and too far invented in to fit within the narrow narrative of ‘America vs. the socialist world’.
By the way, I hope you’re confusing the ‘right of free travel’ with the completely fabricated ‘right to own a car’, which isn’t a right in any country; not in the US or any socialist country you can name.
For me, the underlying benefit of all this is reduced transit times, of which will be immeasurable when it comes to the reduction of transportation costs that contribute to the price of physical goods. That’s something can benefit the economy of any country; socialist or otherwise.
No, I understand the difference between the two rights. You are already socialising transport, by telling OTHERS how they should be moving around. All fine and dandy until your government starts telling YOU how to get around.
Governments all over the world already tell the drivers what to do behind the wheel, even in the US.
Have you ever seen a speed limit sign? That’s the government telling you what you are permitted to do with your car. Same with do not enter signs. Traffic lights restrict and permit traffic flow as required throughout the day.
Do you have a drivers licence? That’s government issued proof of competence that you can safely and responsibly operate a motor vehicle; a licence that can be withdrawn or suspended if found that the licence holder is incompetent or unable to operate a motor vehicle.
Is your car registered with the government? The government wants to make sure your car can be traced right back the day it left the factory with a clear and easily understood paper trail of ownership and history. It also details if the car was ever insured or if it was ever declared a write-off.
Do you have car insurance? That’s something that the government requires you to have, and you have in your car every single fuking time you start your car and go somewhere; even if it’s just down the street. Having proof of insurance to the satisfaction of a government means that you’re able to compensate others should cause harm or damage to other people or their property.
And lets not forget seatbelts, yet another government mandated requirement that drivers have to use.
Why the hell are you worried about the involvement of the government in autonomous cars when you’re not worried about the government involvement in cars today?
Yes there are rules and laws, but I am still free to choose to drive or not to, and to choose what vehicle to drive. You are espousing a time when you will not be allowed to drive your own vehicle, never mind being allowed to buy whatever vehicle you choose to.
We already live in a time when cars be can rendered inactive for non-payment, and cars that will tell collections agencies where they can be found for towing.
You are already restricted in driving and owning vehicles of which you do not hold valid licences to operate.
You’re not as free on the roads as you like to think you are, and you never were. There never was a time when you could act like an ignorant arse on the road and choose which rules to obey and which to ignore, even back in your day.
You are talking about a completely different realm altogether. A lot of things can be taken away for nonpayment.
And if “Big Brother” deems that all citizens are too irresponsible to drive and own their own cars, what other things are government going to take from us for “our own good?” We definitely have to criminalize smoking because people have heath issues. Motorcycles, boats, and ATVs will have to be banned because there are a lot of accidents on them. Not to mention alcohol- there are more than two times as many alcohol-related deaths in this nation than there are auto fatalities so prohibition will have to be reinstituted. Of course guns have to be yanked away because there is a small element of owners that kill people with their guns.
Whenever you get into the government telling us what we can and cannot own “for our own good” we are heading down a slippery slope that will not be reversed.
Agree. There are groups that already want to ban hunting, fishing, eating meat, consuming dairy products, logging, mining, using fossil fuels, nuclear energy, plastics, wearing fur and leather, and more.
So what do you tell everyone who has paid for and owns a non self driving car and loves it? “You’re not permitted to operate this vehicle any longer because someone else deems you to be a threat to society”? Who gets to make that choice? I still want a steering wheel i will always want a steering wheel i just enjoy being the driver I enjoy being in control…why do some people so desperately want to take that away from those of us who literally just enjoy driving?
A lot of it is politics and pure selfishness. News flash: those who are claiming that self-driving tech will save lives COULD CARE LESS about anybody’s lives. They just want mandates so their technology can be profitable and justify to investors why they should keep dumping money into it.