【时代周刊 20160226】为什么人类不应该驾车

满仓

【中文标题】为什么人类不应该驾车
【原文标题】Why You Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Drive
【登载媒体】时代周刊
【原文作者】Matt Vella
【原文链接】http://time.com/4236980/against-human-driving/?xid=homepage&pcd=hp-magmod

人类是糟糕的驾驶员，应该让技术去掌控方向盘。



有关自动驾驶汽车，你应该知道三件事。

第一，自动驾驶技术已经存在了。去年秋天，特斯拉更新了其全球汽车的操作软件。新的软件可以协调车辆内部已经安装的感应器、摄像机、GPS和控制系统，让汽车可以实现所谓的“自主驾驶”，当然人还是要坐在驾驶位置，必要的时候可以人工操纵。几个星期之后，一位拉力赛驾驶员在洛杉矶坐上一辆Model S汽车，仅用两天时间就到达纽约，96％的时间都由车辆自动驾驶。还有一些兴奋的非驾驶人发布了一些视频，包括他们在车辆飞速前进时看书、刷牙。特斯拉创始人埃隆•马斯克预测，他的电动汽车将在三年时间里实现彻底的自动驾驶（甚至包括自动在电桩充电）。

从通用到梅赛德斯奔驰的主流汽车制造商纷纷表态，要在未来几年推出自主驾驶汽车。新一代的自动驾驶传教士还包括行业中如雷贯耳的名字，比如威廉•克雷•福特——以他的曾曾祖父亨利•福特的T型车为标志开启的公司的董事会执行主席——和丰田汽车总裁丰田章男，他的曾曾祖父被称为“日本发明之王”。（作为一名赛车迷，丰田曾经坚决反对自动驾驶汽车，直到去年年底改变了态度。）美国已经有4个州确认了自动驾驶汽车的合法地位，还有至少13个州正在酝酿相关的法律。

第二，它们是优秀的驾驶员。这句话或许对于爱车爱到发疯的美国人来说，很难听到他们被晒黑的左耳中去。但电脑的确是比人更加优秀的驾驶员。它们更留意其它车辆，更好地维持燃油高效的巡航速度，更好地分析GPS数据、天气状况、路上交通，以及所有一切数据，而且可以更好地做出第一反应。电脑不会被车厢里的乘客、儿童，或者是突然并线的傻瓜分神，它也不会偷偷瞄一眼微信，手忙脚乱地收拾散落的煎饼馅，更不会在你双手乱舞时用膝盖夹住方向盘。电脑即使想眨眼，它也不能够。它绝不会接受第4杯葡萄酒，也不会说服自己来点大麻会开得更爽。它最喜欢做的事情就是寻求指示，如果没有接到命令，它根本不会睡觉。

第三，它们将改变一切。经济和安全层面上的效果令人瞠目，道德和法律层面上的挑战将会靠边站。美国宪法并没有给“驾驶权”赋予任何光环，但是如果必须要做出选择，大部分人都会决定自己驾车，放弃宪法第五修正案所赋予的权利，无论有多少统计数字证明驾车会给他人的生活造成威胁。自动驾驶汽车将与信息监控和无人机一起，组成我们这个时代所特有的技术优势和争议。自由还是安全，这个21世纪的两难选择将会引领从人类驾驶到自动驾驶的转变。

人类与机器之间的鸿沟难以逾越，而且越来越大，所以在将无人驾驶汽车合法化之后的下一步，就是如何让无人驾驶成为强制性的要求。今天，你驾驶一辆风驰电掣的跑车要比驾驶一辆慢吞吞的小面包车支付更高的保险费，明天，你驾驶任何一种车辆所支付的保费还要更高。谁将对错误负责？电脑如何做出生与死的选择？这些问题将在未来几年困扰伦理学家和律师们。但是所有的变革都会引发反对力量，这个变革所创造的远远超过其毁灭的事物。

在美国人的心灵深处，驾驶座永远占据着中心的王位。想想邦妮和克莱德用作逃亡的福特V-8、杰克•凯鲁亚克的《在路上》、詹姆斯•迪恩的亡命保时捷Spyder、史蒂夫•麦奎因的野马硬顶、《神速》、《金苍蝇》、《末路狂花》和尼古拉斯•凯奇的《极速60秒》。如果没有福特T型车，20年代将会是什么样？或者说没有德劳瑞恩的80年代？当纳博科夫写下“初见是爱，再见是爱，只要相见永远是爱”的语句时，他可能说的是55年的雷鸟，或者73年的凯迪拉克艾尔多拉多，或者是你第一次驾驶一辆汽车时的自由与豪迈。

汽车与驾驶员的这种情结，就像我们对于打字机和固定电话这种被电脑和智能手机所取代的技术情结一样。那是功用，这是爱。但是，美国人长久以来的浪漫情结伴随着诸多的灾难，时间和金钱的消磨、无数的死亡和伤残受害者。一个没有人类驾驶员的世界会更加安全、更加宜居、更加繁荣。

这里，我承认自己心怀偏激，因为我曾经差点死于一个人类驾驶的汽车。

2014年10月16日清晨，我被一辆小面包车撞倒，开车的是个匆忙赶路的司机。我当时正在跑步去上班，他闯了红灯，把我撞倒。他为自己辩护说当时在下雨，这个路口的交通状况很复杂。在救护车上苏醒之后，我急忙向医生询问我肚腹下面某个珍贵的器官状况如何，在得到答复之后我又失去了知觉。几个小时之后，我基本上算是毫发无伤地走出了医院。但是很多人不像我这样幸运。

在美国，每年有大约600万起汽车事故，这仅仅包括严重到诉诸法律途径的事故。大约3.3万名美国人因此而死亡，还有200万人受伤。（根据国际卫生组织提供的数据，全球每年有130万人死于交通事故。）根据国家高速公路安全办公室提供的信息，其中94％的道路交通事故是驾驶员的责任，这些数字读起来就像是数据化的史蒂芬•金作品《克里斯汀魅力》——恐怖的机械化致命性。据估算，人类为这些灾难所付出的代价高达8,360亿美元。

还有一些统计数据揭示了浪费层面的信息。平均一个美国人每年会遭遇42个小时的交通堵塞，相当于度假一个星期。在这个国家最拥堵的城市——华盛顿、洛杉矶和纽约——这个数字高达82小时。如果乘以普通人的工作年限，对于时间这个最珍贵的资源的浪费触目惊心。

即使你侥幸逃过一劫，跑到一个路上交通极为通畅的地方去居住，你的生活也会受到其他驾驶员不可避免的陋习的影响。比如说，你的汽车就带有人类易犯错的烙印。为什么汽车的外观被设计成这个样子？为什么它这么沉？为什么它的气囊数量比拉斯维加斯脱衣舞俱乐部里的还多？为什么保险杠是这个形状？答案就是：保护乘客的安全，以及按照法律规定，当发生碰撞时，减少人们（比如我）的死亡几率。

要实现安全上的大跃进，明显的举措是把驾驶员的因素剥离出去，目前这个趋势已经不可阻挡。12年前，美国政府资助了首次自动驾驶汽车的比赛，结果没有一辆汽车完成了150英里的沙漠行程。跑得最远的自动驾驶汽车只行驶了7英里，之后就卡住了（轮子也着火了）。第二年，23辆参赛汽车中有5辆跑完全程，最快的一辆车平均时速只有19英里。其中一辆车重达3万磅，大约相当于10辆丰田普锐斯的重量。其余的汽车上装满了感应器、摄像机、电脑设备和天线，与它们比起来，《疯狂的麦克斯》中的拦截机显得利落多了。

今天，谷歌的自动驾驶测试汽车已经行在公共道路上驶了140万英里，相当于普通人驾驶100年的距离。共发生17起事故，全部是在人员干预的情况下发生的。福特测试的自动驾驶汽车正在准备执行冬季驾驶任务，这是该领域中最具挑战性的任务，它很快将成为这个国家最大的自动驾驶汽车生产商。美国交通部长安东尼•福克斯在1月份底特律举办的北美国际车展上宣布了一项为期10年、总金额高达40亿美元的资助计划，专门从事自动驾驶技术的研究，同时承诺会扫除有可能阻碍自动驾驶汽车发展的政策障碍。2月份，国家高速公路安全办公室说，控制汽车的电脑在法律上应该被视为是驾驶员，而不是乘客，从而让研发没有方向盘的自动驾驶汽车的企业有了合法的地位。

即使在发展的初期阶段，自动驾驶汽车在安全和效率方面也带来了巨大的收获。兰德公司的信息科学家尼德西•卡尔拉说，不是很完美的无人驾驶汽车也可以改变整个世界，它们只需要更加安全。“继续依赖人类驾驶员具有很大的风险。”

根据非营利组织伊诺交通中心提供的信息，把美国10％的汽车改成自动驾驶，将会每年减少21.1万起事故，1100人幸免遇难。在这个相对温和的假设中，人类错误所造成的损失将会减少255亿美元。如果把自动驾驶汽车的普及率提高到90％，每年将会减少420万起事故，拯救2.17万人的生命。沃尔沃宣称到2020年，他的新车事故死亡率和重伤率为零，自动驾驶技术是重要的举措之一。根据摩根士丹利分析师提供的信息，美国如果奉行无人驾驶汽车政策，每年可以节省1.3万亿美元，其中包括1580亿美元的燃油成本，5070亿美元的生产力成本和4880亿美元与事故相关的损失。而全世界的总收益是5.6万亿美元。

如果你曾经尝试过在蒙大拿州公路边的休息站劝说爸爸到汽车后座去休息——无论他已经连续开了多少小时的汽车——你或许会了解无人驾驶革命未来所面临的斗争。它们可以撬开我们的手，夺走方向盘的档把，很多人会泣不成声。未来几年无疑将是双方力量角逐的关键时期，也就是无可置疑的数据与根深蒂固的感情对决。

如果了解一下自动驾驶汽车不仅仅会让人类的驾驶行为变得更好，或许会让我们可以更好地接受这种变化。从理论上讲，它们将会创造一个崭新的驾驶模式。让我们用十字路口来举例。为了维护社会契约的平等和稳定，我们安装了停止标志和信号灯，迫使驾驶员轮流通过路口。这些设施压抑了我们内心5岁儿童的冲动，有时候让我们患上了路怒症。

而全自动汽车基本上不需要浪费多余的停止、启动步骤。它们可以相互之间沟通，协调彼此的速度，决定到达路口的时机。它们还可以让驶出和驶入高速公路的汽车与车流完美汇合。交通管理将会变成在全自动世界中精准的芭蕾舞排练。

停车的模式也会发生改变。对此事的预测多种多样，但是基本上来说，美国的每一台汽车都有两到三个停车位——一个在家里，一个在办公室，还有一些零散的停车位分布在商场、机场和体育馆。总共加起来有大约有5亿个停车位，总面积有3000平方英里，合200万英亩。简直太浪费了。洛杉矶一所大学的研究发现，大都市商业区任何一个时间点，都有30％的司机在兜圈子，寻找停车位。而与此同时，城市边缘地区有数百，甚至数千个空停车位。

自动驾驶汽车就像是一个不知疲倦的停车管理员（唯一的区别是你不需要付给它们小费），它们可以把乘客放在目的地，寻找周边的空停车位，自己开过去。当你需要用车的时候，在智能手机上点一下就可以把车叫来。特斯拉的软件已经具备了一个叫做“召唤”的功能，它可以把附近停车场的车带到眼前。公司宣称，两年之内“召唤”可以召集位于几乎任何地点的汽车。



这些特点将会逐渐改变整个环境。餐厅、大商场和办公楼将不再被沥青荒原所包围。领导沃尔沃自动驾驶技术开发的埃里克•克林说：“如果你有了不会发生事故的汽车，你就可以重新设计道路。车道宽度3.5米，为什么？因为人们不能保证车辆直线行驶，他们需要一些余量。桥梁、高架路、隧道，只要车辆的移动可以用高效的运算法则来控制，一切都可以用更廉价的成本修建。”

把人类驾驶员做减法，效率就会做乘法。加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校的工程师史蒂文•什拉多弗分析过拥挤的高速公路交通状况，他发现，在任何一个时刻，高速公路只有不超过5％的路面被汽车所覆盖。如果汽车由电脑来控制，而且汽车之间可以相互沟通，车辆的密度完全可以翻倍，甚至翻两倍，同时又保持同样的平均速度。在现有的公路上挤入更多的车辆可以环缓解拓宽道路，甚至修建新道路的需求压力。

还有一切不那么立竿见影的效果。自动驾驶汽车让年轻人、老年人和残疾人的出行更加方便。根据美国人口统计局提供的数据，到2050年美国65岁以上人口的数量将达到8800万。家庭成员在讨论收回老年人手中车钥匙之后不欢而散的场景，将永远成为历史。

但是每个伊甸园中都潜伏着毒蛇，无人驾驶车托邦也是如此。在对未来的讨论中，持反对意见者经常会提出经典的“电车难题”。他们在想，如果一辆由电脑控制的汽车必须要做出选择，驶向一群行人还是撞毁导致乘客身亡，会发生什么事？或者用一个简单点的例子，多大年龄的乘客可以单独乘坐自动驾驶汽车，18岁？12岁？6岁？新兴的专车司机服务已经可以为7岁的儿童提供代驾服务，UberFamily就允许父母预约配备儿童座椅和小饼干的车辆（但他们不鼓励18岁以下人士单独乘坐）。还有其它一些反对的理由，让美国人崇尚自由的内心找到了握紧车钥匙的理由。

更不用提变革带来的产业灾难。市值1980亿美元的汽车保险业、1000亿美元的停车业和3000亿美元的汽车零配件市场（从发动机部件到后视镜），仅仅是深陷危机的众多产业中的一部分。咨询业巨头毕马威在去年夏天预计，汽车保险业在未来25年将会缩减40％的规模，仅仅是因为智能汽车的普及。人们会失业，美国有300万卡车司机、20万出租车司机和17万汽车修理工。

很多汽车业的从业人员担心，自动驾驶汽车离那些废旧破烂的悲剧只有一步之遥，比如说汽车杀死儿童，把乘客丢下悬崖。（有问题的和那些危险的技术的确曾经让某些车型，甚至某个公司在几十年时间里停滞不前。）黑客也是一个问题，现在还无法准确做出判断。

这种设想有多离谱？众人意见不一，但普遍反应并不算太离谱。特斯拉创始人马斯克说，无人驾驶汽车将在2023年开始取代传统汽车，这个日期要比9/11离我们更近。马斯克在去年的一次会议中说：“你不能让一个人去驾驶重达2吨的致命机器，太危险了。”硅谷的另一位天才、谷歌搜索引擎工程师雷•库兹韦尔赞同马斯克的观点，下个十年将开始普及。业内分析人士预测变革的时间为2035年到2050年。

可以肯定的一点是，与所有的技术变革相同，这项改变会有一种自我混合的效应：路上行驶着越来越多的无人驾驶汽车，街道的设计也会越来越自动化。反过来让人类驾驶的汽车很难在道路上行驶，迫使越来越多的驾驶员不得不交出方向盘。电脑控制的汽车不会吃罚单，入不敷出的交管局不会再对人类驾驶的汽车仅仅给予警告了事。或许，未来你要为驾驶老式汽车而承担额外的税务。这种趋势无法阻挡，直到驾照变成了一种罕见的资历委任状，就像拉丁语教授和驳船船长。

目前看来，自动驾驶汽车还只是人类驾驶员的后备力量。实际上，在特斯拉自动驾驶汽车横贯全国公路的测试中，车辆的确证明了自身的技术水平，但令人不安的是，它在过弯时往往速度过快。谷歌创始人谢尔盖•布林说，方向盘有那么一会儿会锁死。但是总体来说，布林和其它自动驾驶领域的企业高管都在不断强调，人类是交通网络中最危险的一环。布林在9月份接受《华尔街日报》的采访时说：“在我们日常驾驶活动中的绝大部分时间里，我们都更加青睐于让车辆自动驾驶。无论对乘客还是对你身边的人来说，这都更加安全。”沃尔沃和梅赛德斯奔驰等厂家也确认了这个观点，他们保证承担智能汽车犯错所造成的损失。

从某种程度上说，我觉得自己对未来的渴望是件奇怪的事情。我的第一份工作是报道汽车行业，小时候，我喜欢根据车灯、尾翼板等细节来判断车辆的品牌和型号。站在印第安纳波利斯500英里大赛的看台上，身处密歇根州迪尔伯恩福特F-150的生产车间，都让我如醉如痴。我有着珍贵的驾驶回忆，尤其是坐在父亲的敞篷车上的那次横越美国之旅，父亲说旅行的目的是让我“了解美国”。

如果不了解我们的汽车文化，很难体会这样的感受。在20世纪——美国的世纪、汽车的世纪，这并非巧合——就像惠特曼所预言的那样，美国凭借汽车产业变得“强大、富足、公平、繁荣”。汽车产业首先在70年代遭遇危机，后来又受到2008年金融危机的冲击，火车的消亡所带来的感觉无法与这些危机所造成的绝望相比。我们踏上了月球，在那里我们做了什么？坐在一个像去掉壳子的跑车里兜了一圈。

但是人们的感情正在冷却，不仅仅是我自己。00后人口的驾照发放数量明显下降，年轻的美国人不断涌入大城市，那里的生活即使没有汽车也比较方便、便宜。交通的成本一般占家庭总收入的17％，这让很多人放弃了车主的身份。放眼望去，福特把公司的发展方向定义为一个“移动性”的公司，而不仅仅是一个汽车制造商。著名汽车收藏家杰伊•力诺在CNBC主持自己的收藏节目，他说：“汽车变得越来越像一个家用电器，孩子们已经不再对汽车有感情了。我以前所接触到的孩子们，一到16岁就钻进自己的车里。现在的孩子，已经对这些东西没有兴趣了。可以这么说，人与汽车的感情并没有破裂，但是已经岌岌可危了。”

父母们的想法也是一样。密歇根大学的一项调查发现，将近60％的美国成年人对自动驾驶汽车持正面态度，15％的人说他们已经准备好放弃驾驶汽车了。

人们对汽车的掌控程度已经远远低于你的想象了。车身稳定系统、自动刹车、四轮驱动、助力转向、牵引控制、车道控制、自动巡航等等功能，基本上就是一辆自动驾驶汽车的核心技术所在。最后一辆真正意义上的汽车，也就是其技术并没有大幅度超越人类自身的能力的汽车，大约是在30年前生产出来的。

把汽车制造商和设计者最大的思维障碍拿走——不可靠的驾驶员——他们可以设想出无数新奇的方案。谷歌最近发布了一个无人驾驶汽车原型，尽管两车门的设计像是一只性感豆粒软糖，加上轮子更像一个老款的iMac，但它与常见的轿车外观截然不同，似乎为了表示其使用的新能源。谷歌的汽车原型没有方向盘和踏板。（在谷歌与福特协商之后，部分版本的汽车可以在2020年实现量产。）梅赛德斯奔驰最近推出的F015概念车的座椅可以旋转180度，与后排乘客面对面，内部看起来像一个高端的水疗中心。如果苹果也涉足汽车行业，很多人预测所谓的iCar肯定会有更加特殊的外观。

汽车，就像建筑和文学，随着时代变迁而发生变化。在喷气时代，它们彰显的是镀铬饰条和尾翼；SUV在火热的90年代迅速发展；混合动力汽车是当今时代的宠儿；而自动驾驶汽车是明天的象征。在硅谷，你已经可以看到这样的景象，孩子们看着谷歌的测试汽车跑过，在空中挥舞双手。这个姿势表达的意思是“看，无人驾驶！”

所以，我并不会埋葬汽车，而是要盛赞汽车——不仅仅是它的过去，还有它的未来。更安全、更智能、更快捷、更舒适，为什么不呢？当我们的工业技术与运算法则的创造力交融，必然会出现凯鲁亚克新版本的“纯净之路”。这就是美国前进的动力。





原文：

Human beings are terrible drivers. Technology should take the wheel

Three things to know about self-driving cars.

One: They’re here. Last fall, Tesla Motors pushed a software update to its vehicles around the world. The new code coordinated sensors, cameras, GPS and controls already onboard the cars to allow for so-called autonomous driving–albeit with humans in the driver’s seat ready to take over if needed. Within weeks, a crew of rally drivers climbed into a Model S in Los Angeles and sped to New York City in just over two days, the car steering itself 96% of the way. Other stoked nondrivers have posted videos of themselves reading books, brushing their teeth and otherwise ignoring the road as their cars zoomed along. Tesla founder Elon Musk predicts that his electric cars will be entirely self-driving (even docking themselves at robotic charging stations) within three years.

Mainline carmakers from General Motors to Mercedes-Benz have also pledged to sell autonomous vehicles in the next few years. Born-again evangelists of self-driving cars include some of the most venerable names in the business, such as William Clay Ford Jr., executive chairman of the company founded by his Model T–building great-grandfather Henry, and Toyota Motor Corp. president Akio Toyoda, whose great-grandfather was known as the “king of Japanese inventors.” (Toyoda, a racing buff, was adamantly opposed to self-drivers before reversing himself late last year.) Four U.S. states have legalized self-driving cars, and at least 13 more are mulling similar laws.

Two: They’re superior drivers. These words may grate in the sunburned left ears of car-loving Americans. But the computer is simply a better driver than a human. Better at keeping its eyes on other drivers; better at maintaining a steady cruising speed and thereby maximizing fuel efficiency; better at parsing GPS data, weather data, traffic data–any and all kinds of data, really–and better at making rapid-fire adjustments. The computer doesn’t get distracted by a spouse, kids or the jerk who just made an illegal lane change. It doesn’t sneak a glimpse at Snapchat, or fumble with a leaky burrito, or steer with its knees while playing air guitar. The computer couldn’t blink even if it wanted to. It never says yes to a fourth chardonnay, never convinces itself that weed improves its driving. Asking directions is a computer’s favorite activity, and unless ordered to, the computer never falls asleep.

Three: They’re going to change everything. The economic and safety effects will be staggering; the moral and legal challenges will be stubborn. There is no “right to drive” enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, but forced to choose, a lot of people would rather take the wheel than the Fifth–no matter how many statistics are marshaled to prove that driving puts others’ lives at risk. Self-driving cars will likely join digital surveillance and unmanned drones among the advances and controversies that mark our times. Freedom vs. security, that quintessential quandary of the 21st century, will frame the transition from human drivers to more-skillful computers.

And because the gulf between human and machine is so vast–and growing–the next step after making driverless cars legal will be making them mandatory. Today you pay higher insurance premiums to drive a zippy roadster than a dowdy minivan. Tomorrow you could well be paying a steep price for any steering wheel at all. Who will be liable for mistakes? How should computers make life-and-death decisions? Such questions are likely to contort ethicists and lawyers for years to come. But all revolutions involve upheaval, and this one is poised to create far more than it destroys.

In the throne room of the American psyche, a driver’s seat occupies center stage. Think Bonnie and Clyde and their fugitive Ford V-8, Jack Kerouac on the road in a ’49 Hudson, James Dean’s fatal Porsche Spyder, Steve McQueen’s Mustang fastback, Greased Lightning, the Love Bug, Thelma and Louise, Nicolas Cage vanishing in 60 seconds. What would the 1920s be without the Tin Lizzie, or the 1950s without the ‘Vette, or the 1980s without the DeLorean? Nabokov could have been talking about a ’55 T-bird or a ’73 Eldorado–or whatever car you were driving the first time you mashed the gas and felt free–when he wrote, “It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”

That connection between cars and drivers is nothing like the feeling we had for typewriters or landlines or any of a thousand technologies overthrown by computers and smartphones. That was utility; this is love. And yet America’s long-standing romance with its cars has been deeply troubled, sapping time and treasure while leaving innumerable victims dead and maimed. A world without human drivers will be safer, more livable, more prosperous.

I admit to some bias here, since a human-driven vehicle nearly killed me.

Early on the morning of Oct. 16, 2014, I was run down by a minivan driven by someone in a hurry to get somewhere. The driver ran a red light and knocked me over while I was jogging to work. In his defense, it was rainy and the intersection in question is a pain to cross. I woke up long enough in the ambulance to inquire about the status of certain precious organs below my belly button but lost consciousness again before I heard the EMT’s reply. A few hours later, I walked out of the hospital more or less unscathed. Many people are not so lucky.

There are about 6 million car accidents–incidents serious enough to be reported to law enforcement–each year in the U.S. About 33,000 Americans die annually as a result, with an additional 2 million or so injured. (Worldwide, there are about 1.3 million traffic fatalities every year, according to the World Health Organization.) Some 94% of road accidents are the fault of drivers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), whose collection of statistics reads like a numerical translation of Stephen King’s Christine, a chilling account of motorized lethality. The price tag for this mayhem, by one estimate, runs $836 billion.

Other statistics tell of lesser forms of wastage. The average American spends 42 hours per year stuck in traffic–the equivalent of an additional week of vacation. In the country’s most congested areas–Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; and New York City–that figure climbs as high as 82 hours. Multiplied by the span of a working lifetime, this waste of a precious resource, time, is incalculable.

Even if you have been spared a serious accident and manage to live in a place where there is little traffic, your life is shaped for the worse by other drivers’ flaws. Your car, for one, bears the stamp of human fallibility. Why does it look the way it does? Why is it so heavy? Why does it have more air bags than a Vegas strip club? Why are the bumpers shaped the way they are? The answer: engineering to keep occupants safe as well as legislation intended to keep people (like me) from being killed when struck.

To make a real leap forward in safety, the obvious move is to take drivers out of the equation. That is becoming today’s reality with shocking speed. Just 12 years ago, when the U.S. government funded the first international competition for self-piloting vehicles, not one of the challengers finished the 150-mile (240 km) desert course set out for them. The most successful robocar covered a little more than 7 miles (11 km) before stupidly getting itself stuck. (Its wheels also caught fire.) The following year, only five of the 23 vehicles in the competition made it to the finish line, with the fastest one averaging a poky 19 m.p.h. (30 km/h). One of the finishers weighed 30,000 lb. (13,600 kg)–roughly 10 Toyota Priuses–and the rest were so larded with sensors, cameras, computer equipment and antennas that they made Mad Max’s Interceptor look chill by comparison.

Today Google’s autonomous test cars have logged more than 1.4 million miles (2.25 million km) on their odometers on public roads–equivalent to about 100 years of driving for the average individual. Total accidents: 17, all caused by human pilots. Ford’s test fleet of self-driving cars–now charged with conquering wintry driving, one of the field’s most vexing problems–will soon be the country’s largest. And U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx seized the occasion of January’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit to announce a 10-year, $4 billion fund to promote self-driving research, along with a plan to dismantle regulatory barriers that might slow the development of autonomous vehicles. In February, NHTSA said computers controlling a vehicle should be legally defined as drivers rather than human occupants, validating those companies developing self-driving cars that have no steering wheel.

Even at this early stage in their development, self-driving cars promise huge gains in safety and efficiency. Driverless cars don’t have to be perfect to change the world, argues Nidhi Kalra, an information scientist at the Rand Corp. They just have to be safer. “Relying on human drivers any longer than we must is too risky,” she says.

According to a 2013 study by the nonprofit Eno Center for Transportation, converting just 10% of the U.S. vehicle fleet to self-driving cars would reduce the number of accidents each year by 211,000 and save 1,100 lives. In this modest scenario, the costs of human clumsiness would be cut by $25.5 billion. If, somewhere down the road, the share of self-driving vehicles rises to 90%, the number of accidents avoided could reach 4.2 million per year, with 21,700 lives saved. Self-driving technology is part of the reason that Volvo has pledged to have zero deaths or serious injuries in its new cars by 2020. In all, the adoption of driverless cars in the U.S. could save $1.3 trillion a year, according to a Morgan Stanley analysis–including $158 billion in fuel costs, productivity increases of $507 billion and $488 billion in accident-related savings. Total worldwide savings: $5.6 trillion.

If you ever tried to bump Dad to the backseat at a rest stop in Montana–no matter how many hours he’d been at the wheel–you have an inkling of the uphill fight that lies ahead for the driverless revolution. They can have our gearshifts when they pry them from our cold dead hands, many will cry. The coming years will no doubt be a seesaw of competing calculations, in which irrefutable data vies with ingrained passion.

Perhaps it helps to understand that autonomous cars don’t just make human driving better. Ideally, they will remake driving in a wholly new way. Take intersection etiquette, for instance. To maintain the peace and equality of the social contract, we place stop signs and traffic lights where roads meet. Traffic signs and signals force drivers to take turns. They suppress our inner 5-year-olds, even when the frustrations of driving push us toward a tantrum.

Fully autonomous vehicles have far less need for this wasteful stop-and-start regime. They will be capable of communicating with one another and regulating their speeds to stagger their arrivals at crossroads. They will arrange seamless mergers on and off freeways. Traffic management will become a sort of precision ballet in a fully autonomous world.

Parking, too, will be transformed. Estimates vary, but for every car in the U.S. there are between two and three parking spaces–one at home, one at work and fractions at the mall, airport and stadium. Together, these amount to about 500 million spaces in all, or a total area of more than 3,000 sq. mi. (7,770 sq km), some 2 million acres (810,000 hectares). Wildly inefficient. A University of California, Los Angeles, study found that 30% of drivers in certain metropolitan business districts are basically driving in circles at any given moment, searching for an open spot. Meanwhile, there may be hundreds, even thousands, of unoccupied spaces in lots on the edge of town.

Automated cars are like tireless parking valets (except that you don’t have to tip them). They can drop passengers off at their destination, pick up a signal from an empty parking space and then zip away for the return trip. When riders are ready to be picked up, a tap on a smartphone will hail their cars. Already, Tesla software includes a function called Summon, which fetches the vehicle from nearby parking. Within two years, the firm claims, Summon will be able to retrieve cars from almost any distance.

This feature and others will gradually remake the landscape. Restaurants, big-box stores and offices will no longer be surrounded by asphalt tundra. And “if you have cars that do not crash, you can eventually begin to redesign roads,” says Erik Coelingh, who leads Volvo’s self-driving-car initiative. “Lanes are 3.5 meters wide. Why? Because people can’t drive straight. They need some lateral margin. Bridges, overpasses, underpasses–all could be built much more cheaply” when vehicle movement can be dictated by efficient algorithms.

Subtract human drivers and efficiencies multiply. Steven Shladover, a University of California, Berkeley, engineer, has calculated that even on a freeway at peak capacity, only about 5% of the roadway surface is occupied by cars at any given moment. With computers in control and communicating from car to car, density could safely double, even triple, while the same average speed is maintained. Squeezing more vehicles onto existing roads would relieve pressure to widen highways, let alone build new ones.

There are less tangible effects as well. Autonomous vehicles offer improved mobility for the young, the elderly and the handicapped. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 88 million Americans will be over 65 by 2050–and nearly 18 million of them over 85. Anguished family conversations over whether to confiscate a parent’s car keys would become a forgotten bit of history.

But every Eden has its serpent, the driverless autopia included. At conferences to discuss this future, contrarians often raise a version of the classic “trolley problem.” What will happen, they muse, when an algorithmic car must choose between a swerve that would doom a dozen bystanders and a crash that would kill the vehicle’s lone occupant? Or an easier dilemma: At what age will passengers be allowed to ride alone in an autonomous car: 18? 12? 6? Startup chauffeur services already offer rides for children as young as 7. UberFamily allows parents to order up vehicles equipped with car seats and tablets (though it discourages kids younger than 18 from riding unaccompanied). These and plenty of other objections will provide ammunition as America’s libertarian id struggles to hold on to the keys.

Not to mention this: the revolution will destroy a lot. The $198 billion auto-insurance industry, the $100 billion parking industry and the $300 billion auto-aftermarket business (including everything from engine parts to mirror dice) are just a few of the industries in line for deep disruption. A survey last summer by the consulting giant KPMG estimated that the auto-insurance industry could shrink to less than 40% its current size over the next 25 years, just because of smarter cars. People will lose jobs. There are about 3 million truck drivers in the U.S., 200,000 cabbies, 170,000 auto-body and glass-repair technicians.

Many in the car business worry that self-driving vehicles are just one tragedy away from the scrap heap–like, say, a robotic car killing a child or running its occupants off a cliff. (Faulty and dangerous technology has doomed certain car models and delayed entire companies, sometimes for decades.) And hacking is a real concern that has yet to be fully grappled with.

How far off is this great reckoning? Estimates vary–but not by much. Tesla founder Musk has pegged the driverless-car transition to begin around 2023, a date closer to us than 9/11. “You can’t have a person driving a 2-ton death machine,” Musk said at a conference last year. “It’s too dangerous.” Ray Kurzweil, another big Silicon Valley brain, who helps run Google’s engineering efforts, agrees with Musk: Prevalence in the next decade. Industry analysts roughly think 2035 to 2050.

What’s certain is that like all technological revolutions, this one will have a self-compounding effect: more and more driverless cars on the road will result in more and more machine-centric street designs. These will in turn make it harder for humans to share the road, which will force more drivers to trade in their wheels. Because computer-controlled cars don’t get tickets, cash-starved municipalities may encourage their highway patrols to let a lot fewer human drivers off with a friendly warning. One way or another, you will be taxed for driving the old-fashioned way. The cycle could feed on itself until driver’s licenses are a rare credential, like Latin professorships or tugboat captaincies.

For the time being, autonomous cars will include a backup role for human drivers. Indeed, during the cross-country test of the self-driving Tesla, the car–assured of its own handling skills–had a disquieting tendency to race into curves at breakneck speed. The steering wheel will probably stay–for a while, says Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In general, however, Brin and other executives in the self-driving arena continually stress that humans are the most dangerous link in the transportation chain. “I think for a large percentage of our day-to-day driving we’re going to much prefer for the car to drive itself,” Brin told the Wall Street Journal in September. “It’ll be safer for both the occupant and the people around you.” Manufacturers like Volvo and Mercedes-Benz have ratified that position by promising to assume the liability for any mistakes their smart vehicles make.

I find it strange, in a way, to be so eager for this future. I started my career covering the auto business, and as a kid I delighted in identifying makes and models from small details like the shape of a headlamp or a rear quarter panel. I have gotten misty in the stands of the Indy 500 and on the catwalks above Ford’s F-150 truck plant in Dearborn, Mich. I hold road memories dear–especially the long hours in the passenger seat of my dad’s convertible on cross-country trips devised to help me “understand America.”

That understanding is impossible without an appreciation for our car culture. In the 20th century–the American century and the car century, no coincidence–the U.S. grew “strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,” as Whitman rightly projected, with the auto industry in the driver’s seat. The near death of Big Auto, first in the 1970s and later in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, hit us in a way that the demise of, say, passenger trains never did. We went to the moon, and what did we do when we got there? Took a joyride in a rover that resembled a deuce coupe without a shell.

But the romance is cooling, and not just for me. Rates of motor-vehicle licensure are plummeting among millennials. Younger Americans are flocking to cities, where life is cheaper and easier without a car. The obligations and costs of transportation–accounting for about 17% of household budgets–are pushing many out of car ownership altogether. Scanning the horizon, Ford’s namesake chairman refers to the firm’s future as a “mobility” company, not just a carmaker. “Cars have become more appliance-like,” says Jay Leno, the country’s most famous car collector and host of Jay Leno’s Garage on CNBC. “Kids don’t really bond with cars anymore. Every kid I knew was at their DMV as soon as they turned 16. Now I meet kids, and it doesn’t quite hold the same interest. I think the love affair is not over, but I think it’s safe to say it’s waning.”

Mom and Dad are headed in the same direction. Nearly 60% of U.S. adults surveyed by the University of Michigan said they felt positively about autonomous vehicles; a little more than 15% said they were ready to give up driving altogether.

Drivers have already lost more control of their cars than you might imagine. Stability control, automatic braking, all-wheel drive, steering by wire, traction control, lane control, automated cruise control–these and other features add up to the skeleton and nerves of an autonomous car. The last truly analog car, whose built-in technology didn’t far surpass any normal driver’s natural ability, was likely manufactured three decades ago.

Freeing carmakers and designers of their chief constriction–unreliable drivers–will allow them to dream up novel creations. Consider the prototype car that Google recently unveiled. While the little two-door has all the sex appeal of a jelly bean–it looks like an old iMac on wheels–it is different enough from your average sedan to suggest the power of the new. Google’s prototype has no steering wheel and no pedals. (With talks reportedly under way between Google and Ford, some version of the car could be in production by 2020.) Mercedes-Benz’s recent F 015 concept car has seats that rotate 180 degrees to face each other; inside, it looks vaguely like a high-end spa. And if Apple gets into the car business, as many now expect, the iCar will surely think, and look, different.

Cars, like architecture or literature, change to reflect the times. In the jet age, they sported chrome and tail fins. SUVs mushroomed in the go-go 1990s. Hybrid crossovers reflect today’s desire to have our cake and eat it too. The self-driving car will be a mirror for tomorrow. You can already glimpse the outline in Silicon Valley, where children watch for Google’s test vehicles and throw both hands in the air when one passes. “Look, no driver!” the gesture says.

So I come not to bury car culture, but to praise it–not just its past, but its future. Safer, smarter, faster, more comfortable. Why not? Where the craftsmanship of our industry meets the creativity of our algorithms, there we’ll find a new version of Kerouac’s “purity of the road.” That’s what calls America forward now.

云竹

自动驾驶在技术上可以实现，但如果大规模投入使用，还是令人心悸。对于频繁使用，穿梭于人群之中，其硬件的可靠性，软件的抗干扰，防火墙都是极其重要的。