Google Testing Robot Cars? Taking the Fun Out Of Driving?

The New York Times reported that Google was out testing robot cars. I guess this is an outgrowth of their participation in the Darpa Challenge, a US government funded competition to encourage the development of “an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in traffic, performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing, parking and negotiating intersections”.

We at Observer Publishing feel that the US is on the verge of becoming a ‘nanny state’ that’s already trying to legislate away our enjoyment of fried food (trans fats & obesity) and our economic independence (health care reform and punitive taxes on small biz owners). If you subscribe to our theory, you should enjoy while you can the ability to pilot a sports-tuned automobile down a twisty road with no one in sight (other drivers, pedestrians or police).

So why this political diatribe? What does it have to do with Google? Because the Intellectual Property around cars that drive themselves will be REALLY, REALLY valuable due to governmental regulation of our driving habits. If the brains within the GooglePlex can capture this IP, the company will stand to make OODLES over the next decades from this technology. The insurance companies are already lobbying regulators to install 24/7 monitoring devices in your car to measure speed and driving behaviors. Why not take this a step further and mandate automobile technology that automates the process very politely and uninterestingly to your destination without you, the driver, ever touching the steering wheel. In the process Google would get a sliver of the value of every new auto transaction and possibly every older car retrofit as demanded by state and local government.

I can see a few bits of upside to this. Now you can spend all your traveling time to the office reading the paper, eating your McDonald’s drive-thru with two hands and no more distracted driving – text or read facebook all you want! Also, if you have young children who are approaching driving age, one could sleep easier at night knowing that your Ford Taurus is guarding their safety.

However, if you’re like me, watching Top Gear religiously, always looking for a reason to drive across town to the hardware store and enjoying spirited but safe driving in a vehicle that uses a bit too much gas but is a hoot to manuver both around town and on a 70MPH highway, the thought of an autonomously guided car is one more reason to head to the old folks home and dream of winning that day’s ‘Bingo’ pot.