Originally Posted by
ShyGuy
People can't drive worth crap. Most non-alcohol accidents involve distractions, inattentiveness, carelessness, and/or aggressive/reckless actions. Throw in some for weather, but again, a slower/cautious speed would do wonders to reduce those accidents too. An autopilot car doesn't have the complexity of the human mind, so it won't be distracted or do stupid things that humans tend to do all the time that cause crashes. If pilots flew like how the average person drives, there'd be a lot more dead people. Thankfully that's not the case, and aviation today in America is safer than ever before.
Seriously? Sure people can't drive worth crap, especially if you're used to flying 6-9 miles a minute with a wingman 5-1500 feet from you as you do it on NVGs and what not.
I'd take these people who can't drive worth crap over a computer that has shown the ability to be hacked at the drop of a hat sharing my roadspace.
Imagine some guy with the ability to crash an automated car on all the bridges in NYC. Or at all choke points in any major city.
Automation will bring on worse problems than habitual drunks or teens texting.
Now put this into an aviation perspective. How about hacking a widebody and holding it hostage? I know I'll never fly on a fully automated plane.
And before you all start screaming, "airbus is fly by wire" I'll throw this out. I don't fly that.