The Driving in America Blog was started a year ago to bring more information to those who are beginning their journey as motorists’ rights advocates. Over the next several months, I will be working with each of the seven NMA principles to give readers of this weekly blog some idea of what we all are working towards as association members. We thank you for your support and please, if you have questions, ask below in the comments section.
Check out the previous Driving in America blogs on the NMA Principles:
- Principle Number 1: Traffic Safety through Sound Engineering and Real Driver Training
- Principle Number 2: Traffic Laws Fairly Written and Reasonably Enforced
- Principle Number 3: Freedom from Arbitrary Traffic Stops and Unwarranted Searches/Seizures
- Principle Number 4: Freedom from invasive surveillance
- Principle Number 5: Full due process for motorists
- Principle Number 6: Reasonable highway user fees for maintaining and improving highways, not for financing non-highway projects
Motorists’ rights that keep pace with technological advances
Autonomous vehicles and interconnected cars are examples of rapidly evolving technologies that promise improved safety and comfort on the road, but will also spawn new challenges to the rights of drivers.
The rights of motorists in the dawn of driverless and connected cars will continue to evolve. In the meantime, we still have to navigate the current terrain of auto technology that is already here.
What are some of the challenges facing motorists who want to keep pace with auto technology?
The Loss of Privacy and Whose Data is it?
Many of us want to keep the privacy of where we go and when we go but when using even a cell phone, apps tracking our every move. Connected cars that connect to every other car and the street furniture will produce reams of data about our comings and goings that can be used by government authorities, marketing firms and insurance companies. Stakes are already planted on who owns this data, and it seems already that it doesn’t belong to the one who first started the data stream in the first place.
In-Car Technology—will this make us better drivers or better passengers?
Already many new cars have a number of in-car technologies that have been put in place to “assist” us in our driving.
In three years, European new cars will need to have a panoply of assistance devices that not only drive up the cost of owning and maintaining the car but requires a bit of training and comfort with the use. Are motorists up for this challenge? A better question, do we even want it?
Here are some posts from NMA writers about this very topic:
- Vision Zero Invasion of the Car Itself: NMA E-Newsletter #532
- The Tsunami Approaches
- Parenting for Profit
- What is AEBS and why are Automakers Embracing the Tech?
- The Automotive Low Flush Toilet
- Do I really want a Nanny Cam on my face when I drive?
- Mandatory In-Car Breathalyzers Coming?
- Little Brothers
Driverless Cars—do we really want just to be passengers?
Every month, there is a new study that comes out that states categorically, “Americans do not want to ride in driverless cars.”
Why should we? The scenario is that they will be a rideshare vehicle that we summon when we need it and book a space on the street or road at the time we need it. Depending on how much we pay, we may have to go to various marketing hubs or pick up strangers. Who really wants this?
Already cities that utilize rideshare have found that its streets are more congestion than ever and if people had a choice (and did not have a car), they would rather use rideshare than public transit.
The Future for Driving and Car Ownership
Challenges indeed are ahead for motorists. Over 80 percent of American adults possess a driver’s license, and most of us still travel by car most of the time. What kind of car that will be is still a big question.
