Driverless cars are now allowed on Ontario roads
January 23, 2019 by THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek has announced that, as of Jan. 1, participants in Ontario’s automated vehicle pilot program can test driverless cars on public roadways, under strict conditions.
The program’s nine participants – including BlackBerry’s QNX, Magna, Uber and the University of Waterloo – are currently testing 10 vehicles, but aren’t yet using fully driverless ones.
Yurek also announced that members of the public will be able to drive “Level 3” conditionally automated vehicles, which manage most safety-critical driving functions but the driver must be ready to take control of the vehicle at all times.
The Progressive Conservative government says it isn’t aware of any such vehicles for sale in Canada yet, but once they become available, they will be allowed on Ontario roads.
The changes were first proposed last year by the previous Liberal government.
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Considering that the private enterprise system of auto insurance in Ontario, (Oh, how I err! The highly government-regulated private enterprise system of auto insurance in Ontario) is but a feeble method of meeting a grave inequity, there is something of less than a comfortable feeling to know that the contrivance of driverless cars, even with driver-monitors, will be intertwined with the current joyless task of risk taking that is already fraught with malaise and breeding a groundswell of disenchantment as each day progresses.
It’s one thing to swim with a shark; it’s another thing to know that your name tag is slung around its neck. Why don’t we try to get one problem solved – auto insurance – before we collude it with another?
Very reminiscent of Euclid’s way of problem solving – reducing the result to an absurdity.