The Bright，Shiny Distraction of Self-Driving Cars

晨读养成计划

每天背几个单词或句子是学不好英文的。

你之所以觉得自己英文不好（说不好或写不好），并不是因为你词汇量不够或语法差，是因为你没有看过别人是怎么写的或听过别人是怎么说的，有输入才有输出。

通过《晨读养成计划》，你可以：

1）养成学习英语的习惯，创造全英环境

2）保持输入，有些内容可作为写作素材

3）内容导读和生词说明，易于理解吸收

4）沉浸式阅读，告别看过就忘的碎片化学习

同样的范畴

教育、科技、健康、环境…

让我们每天读点不一样的

长城之外、跨越国界、更开放的观点、原滋原味的全英文

周一至周五早上8点09分见

01

本期导读

全世界的汽车制造商和非汽车制造商都在疯狂研究“无人驾驶”技术，得益于此，将会减少车辆在路上的事故，因为在这个点上他们或许觉得人工智能比“人类”更强大，更能避免致命的伤害，当然，又或许是大家都想分这块新技术的蛋糕吧。

不管如何，目前的情况并不明朗，而且人们急于求成，只会酿造更多的灾难。

The Bright, Shiny Distraction of Self-Driving Cars

By Vikas Bajaj

The promise ofself-driving cars(无人驾驶车辆) can be alluring(诱人的) — imagine taking a nap or watching a movie in a comfortable armchair while being shuttled(穿梭，往返) safely home after a long day at work. But like many optimistic images of the future, it is also a bit of an illusion(幻想).

Automated cars may indeed make commuting more pleasurable while preventing accidents and saving tens of thousands of lives — someday. But a recent fatal crash in Tempe, Ariz.(近日发生在美国亚利桑那州的故事，无人驾驶车辆撞死了一个人), involving a car operated by Uber that was tricked out with(装有) sensors and software meant to turn it into a latter-day version of K.I.T.T. from the TV show “Knight Rider”(美国热门电视剧) suggests that at least some of these cars are not ready for thehustle and bustle(熙熙攘攘) of American roads.

In fact, the technology that powers these vehicles could introduce new risks that few people appreciate or understand. For example, when a computer controlling the car does not hit the brakes(刹车) to avoid a collision(撞击), the person in the driver’s seat — many automated cars on the road today still require someone to be there in case of an emergency — may also fail to intervene(干涉) because the driver trusts the car too much to pay close attention to the road. According to a video released by Tempe police, that is what appears to have happened in the Uber crash.

“Technology does not eliminate error, but it changes the nature of errors that are made, and it introduces new kinds of errors,” said Chesley Sullenberger(莎利机长这部非常好看的电影主角的原型), the former US Airways pilot who landed a plane in the Hudson River in 2009 after its engines were struck by birds and who now sits on a Department of Transportation advisory committee on automation. “We have to realize that it’s not a panacea(万能药).”

Mr. Sullenberger is hardly a technophobe(科技恐惧者). He has flown passenger jets crammed with advanced electronics and software and hasa keen professional interest in(热衷于) technology. What concerns him and other safety experts is that industry executives and government officials are rushing headlong(迅猛、轻率) to put self-driving cars on the road without appropriate safeguards and under the unproven hypothesis(假设) that the technology will reduce crashes and fatalities(死亡).

The Senate, for instance, is considering a bill that would exempt(豁免，免除) self-driving cars from existing federal regulations and pre-empt(预先制止) state and local governments from regulating them. And Arizona became a hotbed(温床，滋长地) of self-driving testing by telling auto and technology companies — like Uber — that it will not ask too many questions or institute a lot of new rules.

Even as officials place a big bet that autonomous cars will solve many of our safety problems, American roads are becoming less safe. More than 37,000 people were killed on American roads in 2016, up 5.6 percent from 2015, according to government data. The National Safety Council, a research and advocacy organization, estimates that the death toll was more than 40,000 in 2017.

Experts who are skeptical(怀疑) about the unceasing(不停歇的) forward march of technology say fatalities are rising because public officials have become soenamored with(迷恋) the shiny new thing, self-driving cars, that they have taken their eyes off problems they could be solving today.

In the federal government and most states, there appears to be little interest in or patience for doing the tedious(冗长的) work of identifying and implementing policies and technologies with proven track records of saving lives now, as opposed to some time in the distant future.

Consider automatic braking systems. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates that there is a 42 percent reduction in rear-end crashes that cause injuries when this technology is installed(安装) on cars. Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and other public interest groups asked the Transportation Department in 2015 to require that all new trucks, buses and other commercial vehicles have such systems, which have been around for years.

The department accepted that petition(请愿) but has yet to propose a rule. The government did reach a voluntary agreement with 20 automakers to make automatic braking a standard feature on cars and light trucks by September 2022.

Even as American regulators have dragged their feet(拖延), other industrialized countries have made great strides in reducing traffic crashes over the last two decades. Road fatality rates in Canada, France, Germany and Sweden, for example, are now less than half the rate in the United States. And no, these countries don’t havefleets of(队伍) self-driving cars. They have reduced accidents the old-fashioned way. Some of them have worked to slow down traffic — speed is a leading killer.

They have added medians(中央隔离带) and made other changes to roads to better protect pedestrians(行人). And European regulators have encouraged the use of seatbelts by putting visual reminders even in the back seat. Germany, which has the high-speed autobahn(专指德国的高速), also requires much more rigorous(严格的) driver education and testing than most American states do.

“The things that have been killing us for decades are still killing us: speed,impaired driving(危险驾驶，例如酒驾), not using seatbelts,” said Deborah Hersman, the former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board who now heads the National Safety Council. “The things that we know can save lives, some of them don’t cost any money, like seatbelts.”

Silicon Valley technologists would argue that algorithms(算法) and machine learning will simply leapfrog(跃过) what they might dismiss(不理睬) as the legacy problem of human fallibility. But Mr. Sullenberger, for one, is worried that the rush to develop automated cars will lead to many unforeseen problems. “Even though there is a sense of urgency to prevent human-caused accidents,” he told me, “we need to do it in a responsible way, not the fastest way.”