Yay, more touch screen in cars. More ways to distract, frustrate and confuse users who are operating a big box of steel weighing 3 tons and going at speeds the human brain has never evolved to appropriately deal with. 1) Not only are touch screens a very poor interactor in the first place [0], but why do you think planes and other complex machinery have stuck with physical controls? For operating complex vehicles/app…
I'm not joking around here either. I firmly believe we need safer cars, and self-driving cars would be a great step towards that, but the real issue here is how car-dependent our society is. If more trips could be done on foot or via public transportation, the U.S. would be a much safer place.
Our reliance on car driving makes other forms of transportation unsafe too. The risk of riding a bike is not that you'll fall or hit another bicyclist, but rather that a car will hit you (and probably not even be cited). The biggest risk to walking is that a car will hit you in a cross walk or on a sidewalk (will trying to avoid hitting another car), just because. And we're so cavalier about killing people with cars.
We don't need have to wait (or hope) for technology to save us. We can build better places to live today. Places that are safer and healthier. And that largely starts by making towns and cities more walkable.
When I walk and take the train to work, I can send texts, read news stories, listen to podcasts and check Twitter, all without endangering people's lives. And no futuristic technology is needed to accomplish this.
If society we're a game, I'd be putting my resources to building walking neighborhoods and better public transportation. Even if you have self driving cars, cars are still bad for your health from the lack of exercise and the pollution.