Sticking with the stick (for now)

I have loved manual transmission cars ever since I drove with my dad for an hour to and from DC each day for high school (for me) and work (for him).?The Capital Beltway traffic was aggressive and heavy, and successfully navigating it required skill and calmness. The Fast and the Furious movies hadn’t been conceived yet—the transmission had five gears, not ten—but driving a stick shift was still wildly fun. With total mastery of the small, light vehicle, I could do some incredible things.

On top of the fun, the true appeal of the stick shift lies in safety. With the tools for precise control of the vehicle and a deep and tactile knowledge of its capabilities, the manual transmission driver has more options to handle emergency situations such as brake failures or a stuck accelerator. Fortunately, these emergency situations occur much less frequently as technology improves.? When you drive the car over time, you develop a relationship with it and understand instinctually how to use features, whereas a dabbler, or an automatic driver with a “manual option,” won’t have those tools available in the milliseconds required to respond to danger.

Autonomous cars are also intended to be safer than predecessors. The classic argument for autonomous driving is that it doesn’t need to be infallible, only safer than the human driver. Evangelists evoke statistics of mileage driven to underscore the point, “Look how long we’ve driven without an accident!” and yet, the accidents that do occur often stem from user error, confusion in software, or deficiencies in testing, instead of some hardware fault.? These accidents are usually weird. Most drivers, either due to competence, hubris, or coping, assure themselves they would never do that in an identical situation.

Yet statistics themselves don’t paint the full picture.? Most driving is mundane and only uses a little bit of your brain.?? Driving around beautiful, wide roads on divided highways is easy.? There is even an element of herd immunity—everyone else around me is driving safe, they’ll look after me if I do something stupid, if for no other reason than to keep themselves safe.? Thus, you can talk, listen to music, glance at your phone, and generally tolerate a level of distraction and still get from point A to point B.? Some drivers even enter a kind of hypnotic state where they forgot how they got to their destination, just know that they did.

However, the transition from mundane to emergency, while rare, is quick.? Only if you are fully alert, aware of your vehicle and the surrounding obstacles, and have a safe game plan, will you be able to react in time to save yourself or others.?? Manual driving inherently demands this constant attention.

While autonomous driving technology is getting better with time, its reliability during unexpected situations remains difficult to quantify.? Most users overtly trust the system and are too willing to accept distraction.? ??Today’s autonomous drivers are all told that they must have their hands on the wheel and engage with the same level of attention as a regular car—and the car manufacturers go to comical lengths to enforce attention—but nevertheless, we are all prone to finding ways of bypassing that focus, even subconsciously, to return to a default state of rest.?

To be clear, I believe that autonomous driving is real and makes the world a better place—clearly, I work at a company the invests heavily in improving this technology. My homage to manual cars is little over the top. ??Ultimately, I just love driving manuals and enjoy touting their benefits.? ?

In the bigger picture, though, my main message is that we have to be realistic that autonomous driving technology still has a way to go. Safe software and hardware are critical components of success. Driver assistance systems that cover for drivers’ blind spots and lack of attention to stop them from doing something tragic are invaluable. Ultimately, the driver still needs to be in control (an automatic is perfectly fine!). A middle way between driving with assistance to fully autonomous driving should only happen when the technology can demonstrate proficiency when the wheels fall off, both metaphorically and physically. ??

I do look forward to giving up the stick someday—because if I do it, it will be because the systems will be truly safe and effective.

Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/silver-car-gear-shift-lever-PguIRT0M-M0?utm_content=creditShareLink&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash