Existing tech may be key to keeping your independence

One of the issues that force people to leave their own home is the inability to get around.

But an already-available technology might be the key to allowing people to keep their independence for longer, and it’s already being investigated in the US.

Autonomous, or ‘driverless’, cars are a possible solution for closing “the coming mobility gap for an ageing society,” Joseph Coughlin, the director of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology AgeLab, told the New York Times. Coughlin says that although taxis and services such as Uber and Lyft were alternatives to autonomous cars, they weren’t available in many areas where older people lived, as well as being too expensive for some.

Steven Gold, 68, told the newspaper that he was unsure how he’d get to places such as the doctor’s office and supermarket if his ability to drive became impaired in the future, as he didn’t have a partner or children who could help him.

“If I were still a good driver in a few years, I’d consider a semiautonomous car,” the Michigan resident said. “And if I were in a situation where driving was too physically difficult, then I’d consider a fully autonomous car.”

But Doris Alexander, 77, told the NYT that she’d find having no driver “a little too strange” and would rather rely on public transport.

Big car companies, including Nissan, Ford and Honda are already working on semi- or totally autonomous cars, and Tesla is well-known for its ‘driverless’ technology called Autopilot, that already lets its cars take over driving in some circumstances.

“Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage,” the company’s website explains.

And in October the ABC reported that German company Bosch had unveiled a self-driving vehicle it had developed at its Australian plant in partnership with the Victorian Government. IT News reports that Australia’s federal, state and territories agreed in November on a a set of national policies for fully driverless cars, although the cars aren’t expected to be mainstream until after 2020. 

Law firm Clayton Utz wrote in a 2016 report that because states and territories controlled the laws on road safety, and current laws assumed that vehicles were driven by a human, the legality of driverless cars in Australia was currently murky, and complicated by issues around consumer protection, insurance and liability.

And there has already been controversy over whether Tesla’s Autopilot function contributed to some fatal accidents in which it was switched on during the crash – a charge Tesla has denied but that is being tested by lawyers. 

But experts told the NYT that getting drivers to trust autonomous driving technology would be a slow process.

Coughlin said that the companies making driverless cars would be smart to keep older drivers in mind.

“If seniors don’t trust the technology and don’t like giving up control … it will slow down this business dramatically,” he pointed out.