HUFFINGTON
09.29.13
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
DRIVER ON BOARD
has become so concerned about the
rise of “automation complacency”
that it recently ordered airlines to
have their pilots reserve time to
practice hand-flying planes.
If automation can cause skill
degradation among an elite group
of professionals who train for
years, imagine what it may do to
drivers, who are tested only once
(when they get their driver’s license) and have a much broader
range of driving abilities. (Teenagers drive cars. They’d never be
allowed in the cockpit of a Boeing
777.) Researchers predict drivers will get rusty, making them
ill-equipped to take over for their
cars. Exacerbating the problem:
Autonomous vehicles are likely
to need assistance with the most
challenging driving scenarios —
think slippery streets — that outof-practice drivers would likely be
poorly prepared to handle.
“It’s ironic: We have all these
automated planes, but what we
need is to go back to flying without automation,” observes Raja
Parasuraman, a psychology professor at George Mason University
and director of the graduate program in human factors and applied cognition. “I could envision
a similar situation in driving.”
And as exciting as the technology may seem now, operating driv-
California Gov.
Jerry Brown
signed a
State Senate
bill allowing
driverless cars
to operate on
public roads
for testing
purposes.
The bill also
calls for the
DMV to adopt
regulations for
government
licensing,
testing and
operation of
these vehicles
by January
2015.