Killing Ourselves In Cars No More

MANY YEARS AGO it occurred to me, as it must have occurred to millions of other people, that losing forty thousand American people every year in automotive wrecks is unacceptable, and that something should be done about it, if possible. The notion came to me that it would be a good idea for computers to drive cars, and that when computers drive cars, the number of auto fatalities will significantly decline, to near zero. It must have been about forty years ago, when all this came to my unusual mind. I recall making this remark to my mother, who was unimpressed. Her response? "We already have too many people on this planet." Whatever she meant by that, I'm not sure I wanted, or want, to know. She's dead now, anyway. Surely she didn't mean to imply, or outright proclaim, that she would prefer the continuation of a world in which one million people die in cars every year, over one hundred thousand in China, eighty thousand in India, and so on, and so forth. Not my mother. In most countries, people drive insanely, as if they are either immortal or possessed of a death wish, and among those countries is the United States. I believe I mentioned to her that, yes, population control and stability would be a good thing, sooner or later, preferably sooner, but that allowing the vehicular slaughter to continue into the far future simply was not the way to go about it. Did I say the right thing? I can't recall whether she agreed. I hope she did. She was a good person, believe it or not, and surely had she simply thought about it for a moment, she would have realized what she was saying. I just laughed it off, which was probably for the best. Now, of course, my prediction, the prediction of many people, has come true, here in the science fiction-sounding date of two thousand and nineteen, which to people of my age, sixty three, certainly sounds science fictiony. computers are test driving cars, and it can't be long before we all are, and the great automotive slaughter discontinues. The only problem is, people don't seem to like cars with nobody behind the wheel. In Arizona, one of several places where several corporations have computer driven cars on the roads, the cars are getting shot at, pelted with rocks, rammed with cars and other machines, and generally haarassed like hell, even though there is always a human sitting in the back seat, just in case? Why? Nobody knows. Targets of opportunity? Teen aged gang related activity? Pervasive cultural frustration, being acted upon? Yes, this is really happening, automatic automobiles being savagely attacked, merely for self identifying as "automatic autos". Its almost as if they were gay, black, of Hispanic, or female, or disabled, poor, and unemployed. Like much of the rest of human behavior, this does not speak well of the human condition, of human nature, to state the obvious.We can trust that the abnormal psychological profession will in the fullness of time accurately elucidate the reasons for this bizarre, but all too predictable behavior, and inform us of the actual motives behind it. All of the above, doubtless.