When it comes to self-driving cars the question on everyone’s mind seems to be whether they will, or will not, be banned. This is of interest to me because I am quite confident that this is ignoring a highly probable third possibility: that it will be mandated, and that it is human drivers that will be banned.

Why they won’t be banned

In my personal, subjective, experience the people who are generally talking about the potential for government to ban self-driving cars have a bit of a warped perception of how the government, and corporations, work. They think that corporations are greedy entities (which is true) that have no regard for the safety of the population (which is also largely true, though they do need customers and the more the better) and so they will just put out any product that they think will make them money, even if it kills or maims countless people, which would also be true if only the liabilities created by such a product were not so catastrophic that they would never actually do this.

For example, imagine Apple put out a phone that somehow suffocated one out of a hundred of its operators. News would break, sales would plummet, lawsuits would be filed, the stock price would tank and Apple would break land-speed records filing for bankruptcy. Just look at what happened when people found out some of their phones were bending when you sat on them!

Breaking News: Things can break!

Of course, this ignores long-term harm (like cancer) but it’s all but impossible to imagine how self-driving cars could come with such risks. My point being that car companies will not put out self-driving cars until they can be certain that they are significantly safer than human drivers, if only to escape liability. If not, then why haven’t any companies released self-driving cars? Many have been working on the technology for decades. If they will put out any product for which there could be demand, why not put out a dangerous self-driving car? After all, cars are wildly dangerous.


Shockingly dangerous. It’s the most dangerous thing you do, and many people do it every day. But it is a danger that, for many reasons, the population and the government is willing to tolerate. Therefore it behooves the car makers to simply keep churning out the same cars, with incremental improvements, that comply with the regulations which enable them to escape liability for the harm that is caused by their cars (and also caused by the roads themselves).

Many people like to imagine that government regulations only serve to limit the harm corporations can do to the population, when in actuality they are far more useful in allowing corporations to escape liability because as long as they obey the regulations they cannot be held liable for their violations of Common Law. This is why no one has been imprisoned for any of the deaths resulting from cigarettes, even though at varying times those companies (and the people within them) committed fraud (claiming that cigarettes were safe, even healthy, when they knew this was not the case) which resulted in death (murder) and grievous bodily harm (assault), among no doubt many other crimes (e.g. negligence).

Yes, automakers are greedy and psychopathic (corporations are after all not human and so incapable of human emotion), which is precisely why they have been dragging their feet on self-driving cars. At least one proof-point here is Elon Musk (the CEO of Tesla Motors, of which I am a shareholder) who has said that they will not release self-driving cars until they can prove they are 10 TIMES (1000%) safer than regular cars. Though allow me to clarify that I am not saying that Musk is a psychopath. On the contrary I think he is pushing forward with this technology precisely because he is not and since Tesla is so tightly influenced by its founder and CEO I think it is far less psychopathic than most. But generally these corporations are well aware that if they put out anything less than perfect it would be an open invitation to any politician (who, somehow, is never imagined to be greedy and selfish in contexts like these) to gain political points by attacking them and arguing for further government intervention (and taxes) in their business.

Many people will no doubt interpret that as a defense of government involvement — that this fear acts as a deterrent for bad action. Personally I would rather regulation come from The People, for the benefit of The People, and not to earn political points. Let me put it another way. Because Musk believes that he can only get away with selling cars that are 10X safer than non-self-driving cars, he is forced to hold back production even once he knows that he can make a car that’s 9X, 5X, or even 2X safer.

This may not seem like a big deal until one bears in mind that a 2X improvement would save 500,000 lives a year. In other words, because the system does not allow for 2X improvements in safety to cars, a genocide of our own people occurs every year. However, these are the types of genocides we don’t view as a problem, so they will continue. IMO companies should be encouraged to pursue 2X improvements, not discouraged from doing so, and the people should be free to choose whether they want to buy a 2X safer car, or a 10X safer car and that this is the best way to regulate car companies, in addition to depriving said companies of the right to escape liability for crimes (like murder).

In short, the car companies will not release unsafe self-driving cars (meaning driverless cars that are less safe then non-automated cars) precisely because they are greedy (one can argue whether I am right or wrong, but I am making a prediction, not stating a fact). But that doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be banned. Many are of the opinion that even one death in a self-driving car would derail the whole development. Of course, several people just died in cars while you read this sentence (dozens since you began reading this article), and yet those remain legal.

My point is simply that just because something is dangerous, doesn’t mean it will be banned. The fallacious logic at the root of this reasoning is that the government is a benevolent institution that, at least in situations like these, is eager (even over-eager) to protect the population. Ahhhh, if only ‘twer the case. Sure, it’s possible. If enough accidents happened, some politician would certainly jump at the opportunity, but as I argued before the percentage of accidents due to self-driving cars will be very low. So low, in fact, that drawing attention to them will only serve to highlight just how unsafe driver-cars (and the roads they navigate) are. In addition, the governement makes a lot of money from corporate taxes. They understand that for tax revenues to increase corporations need to be able to develop new products and services which can be sold to the population and generate tax revenues for the State. Expecting them to ban clearly safer products for which there will obviously be tons of demand is expecting them to bite the hand that feeds.

That being said, they certainly do ban things that could generate tax revenues. One of my favorite examples is the Segway. Many large cities (like where I live, New York City) quickly banned the Segway. I don’t (off the top of my head) remember any particularly dangerous incidents involving those machines (and now we are seeing a proliferation of effectively identical products that somehow are not banned) but the argument was that it could be dangerous.

I have little doubt about what happened. Taxi lobbies exist and have a lot of power. In New York City they were one of the largest contributors to our current Mayor’s political campaign, a mayor who (surprise, surprise) flirted with severely restricting Uber’s ability to operate within the city (thereby competing with one of his largest contributors) siting a new-found concern over congestion (somehow the swarm of yellow cabs clogging New York streets for decades never sounded any alarms), but back-tracked due to the popular response in Uber’s favor.

One would hope that the people at the taxi lobby are not so ignorant that they couldn’t see the writing on the wall: more people on Segways would mean fewer people in cabs. They exerted their bought-and-paid for political power and succeeded in getting the Segway (again a product that was never proven dangerous) banned. Of course DeBlasio was not mayor at the time, but something tells me the taxi lobby has been greasing the right palms for decades.

The very nature of bans results in us being unable to see the harm caused by the action. We can not see how many lives the Segway would have taken or saved. However, it seems fairly obvious to me that piloting a Segway on the sidewalk (what are they going to RUN OVER people?!) would be a perfectly safe alternative to both driving oneself and taking a taxi, both of which are extremely dangerous. The Segway then does present an interesting example of a product that was safe, that would have provided tax revenue to the State, and yet was still banned, however, the likely scenario is that the potential tax revenue (and presumably Segway’s bribes a/k/a political contributions) was not sufficient to outweigh the revenue and contributions given by the opposing interests (no doubt car manufacturers didn’t hate seeing these bans either).

Segway, however, was a small and young company and those who have self-driving cars on the horizon (every major automaker and Tesla Motors, which is extremely well-funded) are not. In fact, they are the types of companies that dictate legislation, not fall victim to it. Now this might seem to contradict my previous claim about their fear of liability, but it doesn’t. Politicians and corporations have a complicated, love-hate relationship. Politicians know that corporations pay for their campaigns (they remember to whom they extend their cupped hands during election season), not to mention their cushy post-government private-sector jobs, but they also know that corporations only do so because the politicians have the ability to severely f — k with them. When given an opportunity politicians will take advantage of this leverage to expand their bargaining position, but at the end of the day, they still know on which side their bread is buttered.

Why it could be mandated

Once one understands why it is unlikely that self-driving cars will be banned it becomes a little easier to imagine why they would be mandated, especially if one believes that the government’s goal is to promote the safety of the population. No doubt there are people in government who do believe that is their purpose and mission. However, like corporations, The State is not a human being. It does not have a conscience. It can not care about anyone’s health or well-being. It can not emote. It only “cares” about its own well-being. That well-being is predicated on the illusion that through the use of bans, threats, taxes, and physical punishments (imprisonment) it makes the world a better place. This isn’t even controversial. This is a status quo conclusion.

Why is heroin illegal? Because banning it somehow benefits the population (whether you agree with this or not, this is certainly the logic). Why are people who sell marijuana imprisoned? Hopefully because people think that imprisonment somehow improves things, otherwise it’s just sadism. I don’t agree with any of this logic, and at least with respect to marijuana people are well on their way to coming around, but most people do and the State responds accordingly.

Bearing that in mind self-driving cars present an irresistible opportunity for the State to prove its value. If Musk (and the other automakers who will rush to compete) is able to execute on his claim of a 10X improvement (he will, not because the cars will be so safe but because existing cars are so unsafe) then the State will be presented with an opportunity to significantly increase the safety of the awful roads that it built without having to lift a finger. In addition, it would enable them to spend even less maintaining the roads, assuming self-driving cars still deliver a benefit in such circumstances.

There are several rather obvious precedents here, the seat belt and airbag (and every other mandated safety feature) being the first to come to mind. At the very least this proves that when popular belief holds that a technology offers safety benefits that the State has, in the past, acted to mandate them. Personally I am of the opinion that it does so for the reasons I previously mentioned (mainly the expansion of political power/leverage over a source of revenue) but this is not especially important. While the vast majority of people believe these mandates to have been a good thing (as they will if/when self-driving cars are mandated) the reality is far less clear.

First of all airbags were created by car companies who were competing to market safety features. They weren’t created in a State lab by some super-bureaucrat. Car companies were experimenting with many new safety technologies to appease their customers who were concerned with their own safety (who isn’t?). The reason they weren’t implemented was because they were still proving extremely dangerous (which is why the mandate gave automakers 9 years to implement).

The mandate solved a lot of problems for the large automakers. First, it ended some of the competition over safety features. They now knew that all they had to do was get airbags safe and implement them, and then they would be less vulnerable to liability, as was the case. Despite the fact that cars are still extremely dangerous, since they have seat belts, airbags, and various other mandated features, car companies are "all-good" when it comes to liability. In other words, what that mandate did was allow automakers to abandon their war over safety features (which cost them a lot of money) and escape liability (as usual). In the end there is serious debate over whether seat belts and airbags even make cars safer (believe it or not). While cars have become safer for those inside of them, there is reason to believe that this knowledge encourages people to drive more recklessly resulting in an increased rate of pedestrian fatalities.

Something is not “safer” simply because it saves one life in exchange for another. Self-driving cars present, then, a potentially unprecedented opportunity to both increase the safety of cars for those occupying them and those outside of the cars which the State would be positively foolish to pass up. Now if it were up to me, I would allow The People to make up their minds for themselves instead of depriving them of the freedom to operate their property how they see fit (and accepting liability in the event they do so in a manner that is dangerous to others). I predict that, if not mandated, the number of people using driver-assist or self-driving cars will increase rapidly (as was the case with airbags before the mandate) no matter what because people only enjoy driving in limited spurts, not to mention our inclination for self-preservation.

Most people will be eager to hand over the reigns simply out of boredom and eager, no doubt, to shoot out text messages and check Instagram. Even without a mandate driverless cars will still be very safe and even decrease the incidents and intensity of accidents involving non-automated cars and pedestrians. If self-driving cars really are so great (which would obviously be the argument in favor of a mandate) then demand for them will be high and automakers will be forced to satisfy that demand. A mandate is neither necessary or desirable, and again will only serve to limit how much automakers feel they need to compete to increase safety.

This leaves me in quite an unusual position that no doubt perplexes anyone reading this article. I’m sure most disagree with essentially both of my premises: that government doesn’t really act to protect the people, nor does it succeed, and this could lead it to force everyone to make and buy cars that will greatly increase driving safety. Perplexing, I know :). My only hope can be that people will recall my words as events unfold and hopefully gain some additional insight into the “way things are.”

While only a secondary factor, this is yet another reason why I still own Tesla Motors stock. A mandate would certainly not hurt them, and so will likely help them. While I find it absurd that the same people who are retarding the progress of safety features like self-driving cars will be the same people who force everyone to adopt these technologies that were developed in spite of them (not because of them), it is the most likely outcome I can envision. I’m not saying it’s 100%. Perhaps people are simply too uncomfortable with robot drivers (I’m certainly not blaming them, they have every right, which is why I don’t believe it should be mandated) to give politicians the capital necessary to gain leverage over the automakers.

But paradoxically, the very fact that so few people are thinking about this means that it is even more likely to get implemented. The fact that this is so far off people’s radar makes it more, not less, likely to come to pass. Their guard is down. They are so preoccupied with whether or not it will be banned that when someone comes along, changes the narrative and backs it up with sound statistics (and accurate for a change!), many will be eager to jump on the bandwagon.