If you missed Part 1, it's available here.
Part 2
They went into the office for the eager purchaser to sign the papers and pay his money for the right to use the self-driving car. The salesman was surprisingly downbeat for a man who had just sold a car. He ran through his patter, but his congratulations were quite
muted.
“Well, sir, congratulations on getting this outstanding car. We can offer you a few extras with it: a coating to protect against chipping from stones, an extended warranty, waterproof treatment for the seats – all the valuable, worthwhile add-ons – but each of them will cost more than you’re paying for the car, and you won’t get your money back on them if you change your mind. You know, we make a lot of money on these extras with
ordinary cars, but they’re not really appropriate with this car. The car isn’t manufactured in this town and none of the mechanics around here have ever worked on one. To be honest, we’ve never actually had to do any maintenance work on it. It just keeps working the way it was designed.”
“But it seems that most people don’t like the design?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m sure I will. I’ve always dreamed of having a self-driving car, and this will take all the stress out of driving.”
“I hope so, sir. I truly hope so. Now before you go, the manufacturer requires us to pass on the following advice: join an automobile users’ club…”
“Oh, that’s okay. I’m already a member of one.”
“If you’ll let me finish, sir: the manufacturer very strongly recommends joining a club exclusively for self-driving cars.”
“Hmm. Interesting. This car keeps coming up with surprises. I’ll find a club to join tonight. I hope nothing goes wrong on the way home!”
“Are you sure you want to proceed?” asked the salesman.
“Definitely. I’m actually really looking forward to driving it. Ah… driving in it!”
Finally, the papers were all signed, the fees paid and the car cleaned up ready to drive away. It looked wonderful and the man climbed into the driver’s seat. It felt strange to have no steering wheel, no pedals, no equipment stalks, not even a hand brake. He turned on the car.
“Good afternoon,” said a friendly voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. “I am your self-driving car. I will always do my best to look after you. Please tell me where you want to go.”
This is heaven! thought the man. “I want to go home,” he said. “Do you know where I live?”
“Yes, sir, I know where you live and I will take you there. Please put on your seatbelt.”
“Why do I need a seatbelt? Surely you won’t let us have an accident?”
“No, sir, I won’t, but the law requires you to wear a seatbelt even when it isn’t needed.”
“I suppose so,” sighed the man as he buckled up.
Ah, thought the man as he sat back to enjoy the journey without the stress of constant control and
responsibility, this is the life.
The car drove out of the caryard and proceeded along the street. It always seemed to go at the perfect speed, with a nice balance of caution and assertiveness. They passed smoothly along the freeways and side streets that led to the man’s house, and the man was so happy with the driving that at one point he found himself clapping as the car cleverly picked its way through a gap in the traffic and
rounded a corner while passing two cars in the process. On another occasion, he heard himself say “Well done” when it slowed slightly just before the car next to them swerved dangerously into their lane to avoid a cyclist the driver had not noticed until too late.
At times, he felt that he would have done things differently – forced to curb his impatience when the car seemed to be over-cautious or breathing deeply when it threaded a gap he
thought too narrow – but overall he was very happy when he arrived home. The car parked itself in his garage and turned itself off.
“Thank you,” he said to the car, but there was no answer. Of course, he thought, the car is turned off.
He showed the car to his wife and children and they were suitably impressed.
That evening, he found an automobile club that was only for people with self-driving cars. He signed up straight
away and found that they were having a get-together the very next morning, so he signed up for that too.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” he said to his wife. “I can talk to so many people with self-driving cars and find out all about them before my cooling-off period runs out.”
The next morning he went into the garage before breakfast to look at the car. “Good morning,” he said, but there was no
answer. He scratched his head over this, but concluded that the car must only be able to talk when it was turned on.
After breakfast, he headed back to the garage and turned the car on ready to drive to the clubhouse where the automobile club held their get-togethers.
The clubhouse was about 20 minutes’ drive away, and once again, there were a few times when the lack of control was a little
frustrating. On one occasion, if he’d had a steering wheel, he would have used it, but through good fortune, nothing too bad resulted. Nevertheless, his joy in his new car was tempered a little by the time they stopped in the parking area.
“Thank you,” he said to the car, feeling that he should be polite, even if he wasn’t altogether happy. Once again, there was no response.
He was a
few minutes early, but there were already several cars parked there. Climbing out of his car, he saw that all of the cars were the same make as his own, but he also noticed that, whereas his had a completely blank dashboard, most of these had instruments, and a many had steering wheels!
Making his way inside, he was greeted by the members of the club, who were busy making sure everything was ready for the get-together.
“We haven’t seen you here before,” one said. “Have you just got a Reliable?”
“Yes, I bought it yesterday. Sorry, bought the right to use it.”
“Oh, we don’t worry about the fine distinction. It’s easier to say that we own the car.”
“I suppose so. So you call it a Reliable, rather than a Self-Driving
Car?”
“Yes. That’s why we call ourselves the ‘Reliable Car Club’, too.” He laughed and added sardonically, “Some of our members don’t like to be reminded that their cars really are self-driving. They prefer to talk about all the extra instruments and equipment they’ve added.”
“That must end up expensive, mustn’t it?”
The man looked
puzzled. “No, the equipment isn’t that expensive.”
Another of the members said, “I think he’s referring to the fees we’re meant to pay for adding controls and equipment.”
“Oh, of course,” laughed the other, then smiled at the new owner. “Let me clue you in on a little secret,” he said, winking. “Most people don’t worry about that little technicality. After all, it’s not fair,
and anyway, it probably wouldn’t stand up in a court of law if someone challenged it. No, most of us just do what we want, although I believe there are some who pay.”
“Does everyone add new controls? After all, it seems a bit silly to get a self-driving car and then install lots of equipment to take over the driving again.”
“You’ll learn,” smiled the man.
Meanwhile, more people were straggling in through the doorway, and soon it was time for the formal part of the get-together.
The newest member was surprised to see just how few attended the get-together, and even more surprised when the formal part of the proceedings consisted of a few presenters describing the latest controls that were available or the newest gauge they had fitted to make sure their Reliable was working
properly.
After a while, the new member put up his hand to ask a question. “I thought these self-driving cars were meant to be reliable. Why do you need gauges to make sure things are working properly?”
The presenter looked surprised for a few moments, then answered, “Well, yes, I suppose the Reliables are very reliable, but we like to know what’s really going on.” Pausing briefly, he continued with an ironic laugh, “And
sometimes that means we need to replace the gauges and controls because they break.”
A voice called out from the audience, “Why don’t you admit it? The only things that need maintenance on a Reliable Self-Driving Car are the new controls, gauges and other equipment we put in them. The car itself needs no maintenance, ever. In fact, it works best when you use it just as it was designed – as a Self-Driving Car.”
“As you can hear, Fred is our local purist,” said the presenter apologetically to the new member. “He always likes to remind us that Reliables are truly SDCs. He even thinks we should all have big signs on our cars telling everyone they are self-driving cars. I’m sure you’ll soon understand why we don’t do that – if you don’t already.”
The get-together was a true eye-opener, and the newest
member went away a little confused. Surely the correct use of a self-driving car was self-evident? Yet most of those who owned one seemed to want to take over control themselves. He was honest enough to admit his own occasional frustration when the car did not drive as he expected or wanted it to, but surely adding detailed instrumentation and circumventing the car’s special control completely negated the value of its unique features?
On the way home, he noticed some startled looks from nearby travellers when they saw that he was driving with no controls in front of him. Thinking back to the example of the other members of the car club, he pictured what it would be like to have a speedo or even a steering wheel on that blank, featureless dashboard in front of him. As he was considering this, his car stopped smoothly at some traffic lights and once again he saw shock on the face of the passenger in the
car next to him. Then he saw the shock change, first into disapproval and then anger, and was thankful there were two closed windows between him and the aggressive passenger – who was now swearing at him. The episode was a little frightening and made him consider another possible advantage of fitting a steering wheel – although, of course, he wouldn’t use it. But its presence would make his Self-Driving Car look more like any other car, and that might be safer. No wonder
the speaker at the club had said that none of them had big signs telling others that their cars were Self-Driving Cars!
For the first time, he began to wonder if perhaps he should take advantage of the cooling-off period and return the car.
That afternoon, he took his family for a drive up into the hills near his home, and as they went, his irritation
with the self-driving car grew. It wasn’t anything in particular – well, really, it was. From time to time, the car just did the wrong thing. By good fortune it hadn’t yet caused an accident, but the way it drove was plain silly.
It was the sort of thing that had frustrated him from the start: being either over-cautious or reckless. Once he even shouted “Don’t!” as the car began to change lanes right in front of a car that
was almost beside them when a traffic light suddenly changed to red in front of them… and his car ignored him! That really shook his confidence in the technology, and he was about to start shouting at the car when all of a sudden an accident occurred right beside them in the lane they had just vacated. In the resulting excitement, it was a while before he had an opportunity to talk to the car.
“Why did you change lanes right in front of
that car?” he asked.
“I will always do my best to look after you, sir.”
“Putting us in danger of being rear-ended doesn’t sound like looking after me. And why did you ignore my instruction to stop changing lanes?”
“I will always do my best to look after you, sir.”
“Oh, this is getting us nowhere,”
said the man in frustration. “Drive on.”
When he arrived home, the man went to his bedroom and sat down to think. What should he do? He had to admit that there were many times when the car worked just as he wanted it to, and sometimes it surprised him with its exceptional – almost uncanny – ability to predict the traffic flow and make perfect choices. Yet he couldn’t forget the times when the car got things wrong. Of
course, nothing catastrophic had happened yet – in fact, some of those situations seemed to work out rather well in the end – but there was no doubt that the car was getting things wrong.
Should he take it back? Admit that he was wrong? Do what everyone else did and drive his own car?
No! A self-driving car was what he wanted, although he hadn’t fully understood that until yesterday.
He reminded himself of all the advantages and played down the unexpected irritations. But the car’s refusal to explain its decisions galled him. “I will always do my best look after you, sir”, just wasn’t a good enough answer. Why had the car chosen to change lanes when it did? And why wouldn’t it explain itself?
Situations like that that could be avoided with a steering wheel, he thought.
In the end, he never did make a clear decision to keep the car. Instead, he began to make plans to install extra controls and instruments to protect himself and his family from the occasionally arbitrary decisions of the Self-Driving Car.
A week later, he was the proud driver of a Self-Driving Car with a steering wheel. Now he would be able to stop the car from making those steering errors that put him in danger.
Remembering the angry passenger, he was also pleased that his car would now look more “normal” to others.
The day after getting his new steering wheel – he hadn’t used it seriously yet – the car was driving him along a beautiful road in the hills. On a straight section of road, he was looking out at the lovely scenery and didn’t see the dangerously deep pothole in their path, but fortunately the car did. It turned to avoid the
danger, but when the man saw his new steering wheel turning in front of him, he looked around quickly. Seeing the car heading towards the scrub, he grabbed the steering wheel and yanked it to bring the car back to the middle of the road. Unfortunately, he was too busy spluttering in anger and shock to notice the small bump as the rear wheel caught the edge of the pothole.
“You… you would have had us in the ditch!” he said
accusingly.
“I will always do my best to look after you, sir.”
“Yeah, sure!” he said sarcastically. “Driving into a tree is really good, isn’t it?”
His Reliable kept driving and didn’t answer.
Gradually the man calmed down, but the scenic road had lost its charm. Now eager to get home, he
remembered that the city had built a new section of freeway with all the latest safety features and an ultra smooth roadway. As part of an investigation of traffic flow and safety, there were currently no speed limits on this road. You could go as fast you wanted. The only catch was that if you were involved in an accident, you had to justify your actions in court.
As they drove onto the freeway, the man said, “Home, James, and
don’t spare the horses!”
“Pardon?” answered the car.
“Go home as fast as you can.”
It did.
The man couldn’t believe how fast they were travelling! His Reliable was threading its way between cars, overtaking with abandon and constantly speeding up. His heart was in his mouth as it zoomed up
behind a car, then jerked the wheel to slip through the impossibly small gap between it and the car in the next lane.
Faster and faster they went, until the man said weakly, “Okay, okay, let’s ease off a bit.”
His car obediently slowed to a less terrifying speed, but still, they were home astonishingly soon.
After the car had turned off, the man sat for a few moments, recovering his composure and
thinking back on the day’s driving. He was glad he’d fitted the steering wheel. He was convinced that it had saved his life when the car tried to drive off the road.
His mind also kept replaying a picture of the car speeding up behind a car before suddenly dodging into the next lane and racing past.
He must fit a brake pedal.
A few months
later, he was still driving his Self-Driving Car, but now it had all the modern conveniences that made Self-Driving so much more comfortable. It had cost him a lot of money – he was determined to pay the required fee for each control or instrument he fitted – but now he also had brakes, a hand-brake, an indicator stalk, an accelerator pedal and a speedometer. The set of warning lights should arrive next week. They weren’t strictly necessary, but he was looking forward to having
that comfortable feeling that he would know if anything was going wrong with the engine.
Everything was hunky-dory, and he was confident that his extra equipment was the best way to work in harmony with his Self-Driving Car. After the warning lights arrived and were fitted, he invited his wife to go out for a drive. She rarely travelled in a car and had not been in the Reliable since he had all the extra equipment fitted. He
wanted to show it off.
“Why the steering wheel?” she asked as she slipped into the passenger seat.
“Sometimes – just occasionally – the car makes mistakes, and the steering wheel lets me correct that.”
“Is that why you had to have a dint fixed last week?”
“Ah, no. That happened because I was using the steering wheel and misjudged how close we
were to a pole.”
“Would the car have hit the pole if you hadn’t been steering?”
“Probably not.”
“Has the car ever hit anything when you let it do its job? After all, it is a Self-Driving Car.”
“Well, no, but I’m sure it would have if I hadn’t had the steering wheel. Why, there was that time
when…”
“If a Self-Driving Car ever hits something you could have avoided,” she interrupted, “then it’s not safe and you should get rid of it.”
“But I appreciate the comfort of knowing that the car can drive itself, even if I drive it myself most of the time now.”
He wife looked at him from under her eyelashes, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She didn’t understand.
“And what about those instruments?” she continued, gesturing to his speedo and the lovely new set of lights. “Why do you have them? They cost a lot of money, yet the car monitors all that itself. The manufacturer claims that nothing ever goes wrong: no breakdowns, no maintenance. The Reliable Self-Driving Car does everything itself: all you need to do is get in and it will drive you to your destination. Every time. That’s what the website
says. Is it wrong?”
“Well, no, not really, but…”
“Then why spend all that money just to take control and do the job worse than the car would by itself?”
“But I like to…” The man stopped and thought. That was the nub of the matter. He’d bought the right to use the best Self-Driving Car in the world because it was better than
driving himself. He’d seen that the car could drive smoothly and safely, often with a skill he knew he couldn’t match, yet over the last few months he had done all he could to wrest back control.
Almost all the drivers in the Reliable Car Club were the same.
He looked back at his wife. “I think I need to talk to Fred.”
“Who is Fred?”
“He’s a member of the Reliable Car Club, but he’s different from the rest of us. He… he… he trusts his car. I’m told he often goes for drives without wanting to go anywhere in particular, just for the joy of watching the view as the car drives him. Someone even said that he lets the car decide where to go and that he’s ended up in some amazing places!”
“You know I don’t drive, dear,” said
his wife, “but it sounds to me as if Fred’s using the Self-Driving Car the way the designer intended. Perhaps I should get one myself.”
