Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

Staying awake while your car does the driving

5/30/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
When it comes to self-driving cars, we’re in that awkward in-between stage.

Fancy new cars lull us to sleep as they keep themselves centered in the lane and adjust their speeds to traffic, leaving us free to stare at the countryside or do whatever.

But “whatever” won’t hold up as an excuse in court.
Get into an accident and watch how quickly the manufacturer argues it was your fault for not grabbing the wheel or braking soon enough.
Last year, a man in Florida thought he could watch Harry Potter while his car did the driving. He died when his Tesla failed to see a white truck against a bright spring sky. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration eventually ruled Tesla’s software functioned properly.

Drivers, perhaps bored out of their minds while watching their cars do the driving, must be ready to jump in the moment something goes wrong — at least until this awkward stage is over, and that may be a while.

University of Utah researchers soon will study exactly what this semi-autonomous world of motoring does to the brain, which might help manufacturers figure out how to keep you engaged.

Assistant professor Francesco Biondi and associate professor Joel Cooper, both of the psychology department, sat down with me to explain how this will work. Beginning in a few weeks, people who signed up as guinea pigs will begin driving to Wendover and back in a Tesla, wearing caps that monitor brain waves and contraptions that track heartbeats. For part of the trip, they will use every automated function the car has to offer. For the other part, they will drive manually, the way people have been doing it since the late 19th century.

“The idea is to see, after having the car take over some of the driving, how your alertness level changes — if you become less aware or more aware of the traffic around you,” Biondi said.

The study will be in collaboration with the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. They picked I-80 to Wendover for obvious reasons. The road is long, straight and, unless you are strangely energized by mirages shimmering above salt flats, incredibly boring.

I can predict what will happen during those autonomous hours. Unless the Tesla is equipped with a voice that plays “I spy with my little eye” or with a Diet Coke dispenser, the drivers will start wishing Utah law allowed them to text a friend.

The hope is they aren’t dreaming this as their heads slump toward their armrests.
In an ironic twist, Cooper said cell phones might be part of the answer to staying awake. “In cars where you’re in the control, distraction is the problem. In cars where the vehicle is in control, the distraction could be the solution,” he said.

I can see the public service announcements now, “Text and drive to stay alive!”

Unless, of course, you’re still driving an old-fashioned car.

If that sounds confusing, get used to it. Not only will the owners of these cutting-edge vehicles be guinea pigs, of sorts, for a while, lawmakers in 50 states will be scrambling to keep up and, one hopes, not getting in the way.

The nation has survived worse. The Detroit News recently described the early days of the automobile as a time when “there were no stop signs, warning signs, traffic lights, traffic cops, driver's education, lane lines, street lighting, brake lights, driver's licenses or posted speed limits. Our current method of making a left turn was not known, and drinking-and-driving was not considered a serious crime.”

That may sound like parts of State Street on a Saturday night, but the truth is things have improved a lot since then.

It’s also true that autonomous cars hold a lot of promise for an even better future.
Biondi has a six-point scale to that promised land. We’re on level two, where cars do a lot of work but drivers must stay attentive.

The gulf between this and level three, where drivers no longer need to be constantly alert, is a “Grand Canyon chasm.”
​
In other words, it’s going to be a while, folks. We had all better figure out how to stay awake. 
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Search this site


    Like what you read here?

      Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Campaign 2012
    Congress
    Crime
    Culture
    Iran
    Oil And Gas
    Poverty
    Steroids
    Taxes
    Utah
    Washington
    World Events
    World Events

    Links

    Deseret News
    Newslink
    Marianne Evensen's blog

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.