Can Cars Ever Be Too Safe?

from the i-want-a-giant-spike-on-my-steering-wheel dept

Whenever technology begins to take over, there are those who worry about what's "lost" in relying too heavily on technology. Remember people who said that kids wouldn't understand math if they used calculators? Or those who are now afraid that kids won't be able to write because they spend so much time typing? Or those fears that we're all so used to Google being available all the time, that we're letting our memory go? Along those lines, Wired is asking if all of the next generation of safety features in cars means that we're becoming too complacent as drivers. After all, with new technologies that effectively take over for a driver if it looks like a crash is about to happen, or at the very least try to alert the driver of that possibility, perhaps people will start relying on the technology too much. When it comes to driving, we've certainly seen a few too many examples of drivers trusting their GPS devices over their own eyes. So, it's not out of the realm of possibility (especially with technology being as unreliable as it often is) that people will become so reliant on these technologies that they'll become somewhat more careless, but that hardly seems like a good reason to stop this type of technology from moving forward. After all, you could take it to the extreme, and note that if everyone drove around with giant spikes on their steering wheels instead of airbags, everyone would drive a lot more carefully -- but no one wants that to happen.

Filed Under: cars, safety

Company Betting On GPS-Based Driving Tax

from the we-know-where-you've-been-driving dept

Back in 2003, the state of Oregon considered a driving tax, which would involve putting GPS devices on cars so the government could see how far you drove, and then tax you for it. The idea being that those who drive more should pay a larger portion of taxes to support the roads they drive on. Of course, for many, many people, the idea of the government keeping tabs on where you drive and how far you go seems rather Big Brotherish -- and those people note that you can accomplish pretty much the same thing (making heavy drivers pay more taxes) simply by taxing gasoline. Soon afterwards, the head of California's DMV suggested that a similar taxing and tracking plan made sense. Over in the UK, they've looked at similar proposals as well. It certainly seems a bit early to bet on such a concept as the next big thing, but that apparently hasn't stopped one company from building a device for exactly this purpose and showing it off at a recent conference. The company is smart in positioning it less as a device for tracking drivers and more as a way of "creating toll roads out of every road." The News.com article then goes on to rail against the very idea of toll roads -- but perhaps that's because they're quite rare here in northern California. In other parts of the country, they're a lot more common. Rather than worrying about the toll road aspect, it seems like the idea of government agencies having immediate access to information about where you drove at what time is a lot more troublesome.

Filed Under: big brother, cars, driving, gps, tax, tracking