{"id":4393,"date":"2025-02-05T08:43:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T13:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4393"},"modified":"2025-02-05T08:43:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T13:43:54","slug":"hands-off-the-wheel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/hands-off-the-wheel\/","title":{"rendered":"Hands Off the Wheel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

So, are you ready to slip into the passenger seat of a car that drives itself?

Ready or not, here they come.\u00a0

Most major car companies have been investing heavily in the design and production of autonomous vehicles. Tesla, Ford, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz have led the way, not to mention start-ups like Waymo, Google\u2019s self-driving car project.

Ten years ago, optimism was off the charts.

Test models had compiled an excellent safety record. Self-driving tractors had proved they could deliver faster, more precise results than tractors controlled by human farmers. An 18-wheeler drove 120 miles by itself from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs CO toting 50,000 cans of Budweiser.\u00a0

It appeared the great American dream of driving off the lot with a shiny new car was on the ropes. John Zimmer, the president of Lyft, even suggested that private car ownership would \u201call but end\u201d in most major American cities by 2025.

Having arrived at that auspicious year, however, it\u2019s safe to say that the vast majority of Americans don\u2019t have a self-driving car sitting in their garage, and have probably never ridden in one.

What happened? Autonomous technology has moved forward in fits and starts while struggling to address obstacles in real-world driving conditions.

Self-driving software, for instance, has to know how to navigate rain, fog, chuckholes, missing traffic signs, and police officers rerouting cars at a crash site. How can a driverless vehicle resolve the \u201cyou-go-first\u201d ritual of waving to another driver when two cars arrive simultaneously at an intersection?

Last summer, a Waymo self-driving taxi ran into a utility pole in Phoenix, Arizona. Engineers promptly recalled all 672 such taxis to adjust their software\u2019s response to \u201cpole-like items.\u201d

Such stories, although rare, do not build public confidence. A 2022 survey revealed that only 27% of the world\u2019s population would feel safe riding in a self-driving car.

Furthermore, how is Vin Diesel ever going to make the next seven installments of the Fast and Furious <\/em>film series if autonomous vehicles won\u2019t let him drive through the lobby of an office building?

Consumer pushback is predictable.\u00a0The exhilaration of taking the wheel has become a defining feature of American culture.\u00a0Why should such freedom be curtailed?

Here\u2019s a really good reason:\u00a0People crash a lot.<\/em>

If this proves to be an average year, some 43,000 of our fellow citizens will die in vehicular accidents, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of others who will be injured or whose lives will be forever altered.

People drive angry.\u00a0And drunk.\u00a0And fall asleep at the wheel.\u00a0And take selfies.\u00a0And become distracted. And text their friends.\u00a0And take outrageous chances in winter weather.\u00a0And become lost.\u00a0None of which will ever happen in a properly engineered driverless car.

Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize Foundation, muses, \u201cSoon we may well look back in shock that we ever let humans drive cars on their own.\u201d

While many people are just learning how to spell autonomous<\/em>, it\u2019s a word that has been around for a very long time.

Autonomous is a hybrid of two Greek words:\u00a0auto <\/em>(\u201cself\u201d \u2013 think \u201cauto-mobile,\u201d something that moves by itself) and nomos <\/em>(\u201claw\u201d \u2013 think \u201castro-nomy,\u201d the laws and facts pertaining to \u201casters,\u201d or stars).

Something autonomous is self-governing.\u00a0It is independent.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t take orders from someone or something else, and isn\u2019t controlled by an outside force.

While most of us aren\u2019t ready with a snappy definition of autonomous, we all know its meaning by heart.

That\u2019s because, according to the Bible, the yearning for autonomy has been at the very center of humanity\u2019s headlong rush away<\/em> from God\u2019s desires for our lives.

Adam and Eve (and every human being to follow) would dream their own dreams, determine their own boundaries, and make up their own rules, thank you.\u00a0We will be governed by self-law.\u00a0We will sit in the driver\u2019s seat.\u00a0God can take shotgun if he wants (or ride in the back), but we will keep our fingers tightly wrapped around the wheel.

Which is why \u201cautonomous,\u201d when it comes to human behavior, is such an appropriate 21st<\/sup> century synonym for \u201csin.\u201d

Why doesn\u2019t God want us to be in control of our own lives?

Here\u2019s a really good reason:\u00a0People crash a lot.\u00a0<\/em>

The essential first step to spiritual health is therefore an act of surrender.\u00a0We hand our car keys over to God. \u00a0

Are you ready to slip into the passenger<\/em> seat of your own life this year, and entrust yourself to the God who is entirely capable of being driver, navigator, and mechanic?

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here So, are you ready to slip into the passenger seat of a car that drives itself? Ready or not, here they come.\u00a0 Most major car companies have been investing heavily in the design and production of autonomous vehicles. Tesla, Ford, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz have led the way, not to mention start-ups… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[861,523,430],"class_list":["post-4393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-autonomy","tag-control","tag-sin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4395,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4393\/revisions\/4395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}