The Lame Rules (Laws) Say That You Have To Operate A Tesla In The Driver's Seat Even If It's Autodriving: Nobody's Going To Do That

Apr 30

Apr 30 The Lame Rules (Laws) Say That You Have To Operate A Tesla In The Driver's Seat Even If It's Autodriving: Nobody's Going To Do That

The era of driverless cars is coming down the road.

But not quickly enough for one British man, who ran afoul of the law when he was caught in the front passenger seat of a Tesla set to Autopilot, cruising at about 40 miles per hour with his hands behind his head.

No one was in the driver’s seat.

The police said in a statement that Mr. Patel, who had owned the car for about five months before the stunt, admitted that what he had done was “silly” but said that the car was capable of something “amazing” and that he was just the “unlucky one who got caught.”

On April 20, Mr. Patel pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, and a court barred him from driving for 18 months.

Full story here.

This is against the law? Yeah, good luck enforcing this one. Nobody buys, or is ever going to buy a Tesla to stay alert behind the wheel, ready to brake at a moment’s notice. Braking is objectively the most boring part of driving. If you wanted to stay alert and hit the brakes, you’d just drive a normal car. People want to take naps on their commute, not play driver’s ed teacher to some idiot AI system who doesn’t know not to run over cyclists. Nobody’s ever going to play by your rules, because your rules are stupid.

The whole point of cars that drive themselves is that you don’t have to do anything. Doing anything in a car while you’re not driving is not fun. It sucks to navigate, it sucks having to keep the driver occupied, it sucks not being able to sleep, it just all sucks. Robot cars should save us from that, not tie us tighter to it. I want my robot butler to take me where I want to go, hit my favorite drive-throughs, weave through traffic, and not kill me or anybody else, all while I sip mojitos in the backseat, closing deals and winning Fortnite.

So I don’t know what to tell you on this one lawmakers, because i think your vision of what the future looks like is a lot different and a lot less lazy than everybody else’s.