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Monash University Professor Robert Sparrow.

Monash University Professor Robert Sparrow.

WHEN driverless cars are proven to save human lives by eliminating or reducing accident rates, it should be illegal for humans to drive, a fleet managers’ conference has heard this week.

Professor Robert Sparrow told the Australasian Fleet Conference in Melbourne that at that point, cars should not be fitted with steering wheels.

Professor Sparrow, who works in Monash University’s philosophy program and in the Centre for Human Bioethics, outlined a future where people would not need to own or drive vehicles but would, instead, use public transport and mobility services provided by autonomous vehicles.

He admitted this suggested a bleak future for car-makers and, by extension, car dealers as far fewer vehicles would be required to meet society’s transport needs.

“When you talk to people who are gung-ho about driverless vehicles, they insist they will be safer than human drivers,” said Professor Sparrow.

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No hands please: An academic from Melbourne’s Monash University has said that cars are a “disaster” and that driverless vehicles should be embraced.

“I am inclined to say that, when they do start saving human lives, we should embrace them.

“Indeed, we should embrace them way more than people think. It should be illegal to drive in the future.”

He said that, if the driverless cars of the future came with optional steering wheels, the standard of safety would decline if the driver actually took the wheel.

“The full autopilot is better than you are. So, when you get into your vehicle, you place my life at risk.

“When you put your hands on the steering wheel, you are equivalent to a drunk robot, and you are elevating the risk to me. So I am going to legislate that your car shouldn’t have a steering wheel.”

Professor Sparrow said that, even if cars were made with both autopilot and a manual mode, it should be mandatory to use the autopilot.

“Steering wheels are dangerous for all sorts of reasons, but they are dangerous because allowing people to drive in the future – when the machines are better at it – elevates the risk to everyone else.”

He said the proposition should be clear for fleet managers.

“If you are a fleet manager, you should take the steering wheels out because your cars will collide less. Your fleet will be cheaper to run if you don’t let people drive them and if the machines do what’s promised.

“If they don’t do what’s promised, if they are more dangerous than human beings, then we shouldn’t have them on the roads at all.”

Professor Sparrow said the adoption of driverless vehicles would turn the whole transport paradigm on its head.

“You’re essentially replacing the private motor vehicle fleet. It will all become transport services.

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“Once you cease to drive a car, you’ll cease to identify with it. You will just enter some codes on your mobile phones and a ride service will come and pick you up.

“You will use public transport and then for the last five or 10 kilometres you will use a vehicle that you don’t own, but for which you pay a service fee.”

Professor Sparrow was perplexed as to why car-makers appeared to be rushing to introduce driverless technology when it held out the prospect of such a future.

“If I was an automotive vehicle manufacturer, I would be looking at a future where the private motor vehicle has gone out of existence with horror.

“I wouldn’t be racing to introduce this technology. It will undercut the market and take most vehicles off the roads.

“Now, I’m down with that because cars are a disaster. From a public health perspective, from an environmental perspective, from an urban planning perspective, cars have been a consistent disaster.

“It’s not a popular message in this day and age, but fleets are much better than the private motor vehicle.”

He said the key questions were what to do about the private car and the shape of the future transport system.

“Do we try to rescue the private motor vehicle in some way or do we rapidly transition to a system where most people never drive a vehicle at all, where it’ s all done by robots, and we have a vastly efficient, essentially mostly public transport system?

“And it will all be about fleet management.”

By Ian Porter

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