LETTER: Don’t buy the hype over driverless cars

We are witnessing substantial efforts to develop and promote driverless vehicles. Three apparent reasons for this are potentially large profits for the manufacturers and their high-tech suppliers, the elimination of drivers for all sorts of commercial vehicles to the benefit of their employers, and the reduction of traffic accidents and deaths.

The premise for the latter is that you and I are poor and unsafe drivers and should be replaced. To ultimately prevent us from driving, the government safety bureaucrats could mandate that the car companies make and sell only driverless cars. We would then have no choice but to pay the cost of all the added computers and high-tech gadgets and to be content as idle passengers when we want to go somewhere.

But the contention that driverless vehicles would be safer is not established. The challenges are immense and the unforeseen problems are legion.

We must not let ourselves be steam-rolled by the driverless car lobby. If adopted, driverless vehicles will put millions and millions of commercial drivers out of work.

I am prepared to vote for a proposition that bans driverless vehicles from the roads and highways of Nevada. The burden of proof would then be with the advocates — when they are ready, they can ask the voters to remove the ban.