Welcome Driverless Cars

Summary

The SEO Berkshire team within digital agency Cayenne Red is interested in all things technical of course, so we were fascinated to learn that soon our roads will be packed with driverless Google cars. But is this a gimmick, or a meaningful step forward towards something that will help mankind?

The SEO Berkshire team within digital agency Cayenne Red is interested in all things technical of course, so we were fascinated to learn that soon our roads will be packed with driverless Google cars. But is this a gimmick, or a meaningful step forward towards something that will help mankind?

You can’t quite imagine Messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May getting that excited by the Google driverless cars. These are not the rocket propelled supercars that so many people like to drool over. Instead, they are quite plain cars with computers taking over the controls.

They’ve been tested in the US and also in Spain, and have shown to be reliable and safe. However, the cars were strictly controlled and in the case of Spain mimicked the use of a ‘lead’ human driver at the front of a convoy.

But, in terms of how quickly technology advances in a matter of months, it’s likely that driverless cars will quickly be a reality on the streets.

And we should welcome this advancement with open arms. Okay, yes, driving can be fun and yes, there’s nothing like running through the gears in a swift car on the open road. But, the sad truth is, modern day driving is all about negotiating hugely busy roads when the chance of breaking the speed limit would be a rare thing indeed.

Also, driving is ever more demanding, with local authorities seeing road furniture (signs, sleeping policemen) as a chance to keep the driver’s eyes anywhere but the car in front. Drive down an average City road these days and you are confronted with so many visual instructions that you’ll soon need a computer to figure them out.

Now, driverless cars are super clever. They don’t get over-stimulated by signs, don’t start flashing the finger to bike riders and certainly don’t wish to separate a traffic warden’s head from his shoulders.

Nor do they get fatigued, which is a major problem with today’s roads. They don’t have to stop every two hours on the motorway to get refueled with a KFC and super Cola.

So, we should embrace these wonders of technology. The only issue is what happens when there is an accident? Will it be a similar situation we have with bank ATMs, a presumed sense of innocence?

Anyone who’s been short-changed by an ATM will know how difficult it is to prove the injustice of not getting the right number of notes. It’s like hitting your head against a brick wall.

So when the driver-less, highly intelligent car decides to throw a wobbly and smash into you – try proving to the judge that simple you, who doesn’t have a computer processor for a brain, was not at fault!

Move over Top Gear.

Attribute to: Biljana Dimovska, Cayenne Red.

Biljana Dimovska is a member of the digital marketing team at SEO Windsor agency Cayenne Red. She is a regular contributor to the media on how companies market themselves in the digital age.