american hit tv. -- every , i have weekend on >> next, dan albert talks about his book, "are we there yet?: the american automobile past, " inent, and driverless, which he argues against driverless cars. >> we are joined by historian and automated journalist dan albert. dan has spent a career writing and teaching about the history of culture and technology. he holds a phd in history, where he also taught in the college of engineering. curator served as the of vehicle selection at the national museum of industry in london.

he is the author of are we there yet -- of "are we there yet?: the american automobile past, ."esent, and driverless please join me in welcoming him this evening. >> thank you so much. generous and sweet introduction. the smithsonian associate people have reminded me how engaged these audiences are. i really give you my a game to take that seriously.

intellectual, be a little heavy. there's a lot of material in the book. myrything from teaching daughter to drive to a freudian analysis. and a little bit of this theory of how one understands that. at the end of the day i want to talk about cars. i am both a lover and hater of cars for a variety of reasons. let's get started.

keep your hands up. how many of you went to the gift shop afterwards and bought the vinyl record and brought it home and played it? these two, i know them. i realized halfway through it, how many of you own a car? how many of you own a toyota? how many of you own a mercedes? how many of you own an american

car? how many of you don't own a car or rarely drive? we are going to talk about cars. the museum of american history , just an back in 1974 thrall. maybe the capital building and see the airplanes, but mostly go to history and technology. i was much fatter back then.

this is a stock photo from the smithsonian collection. i want you to get a sense of it. talk a little bit about what that exhibition tells us about what we think about technology. prospectpart was the -- when we face the prospect of driverless cars is the process in which they are coming upon us . it's got a collection of objects and labels that specifically say this guy invented it. very straightforward.

as i thought about different ways of understanding technology, i realize this got an implicit story behind it. a technological evolution. theynes are invented and ping-pong their way through our lives. gutenberg invents the printing press, people learn to read. we don't think about the other way of doing things. technology shows up and we buy it. that also is reinforced here. there is an implicit understanding that technology was important, that technology

advances become more efficient over time. show you quickly, i hope you can -- hope you can see things. a high see there's wheeler pulling out. we are away from the right to the left. they get better. you can see from the far left ,orner all the way to the back more advance car, more advanced car. to aan see gas pumps there little later one. and of course the centerpiece, the race car. what it isow much

like to drive it, how do people experience it? do people go to races? 2009, i think it is, america on the move. the general motors transportation hall, the 1401 is in that hall. a gorgeous train. but also there is an intention and purpose. that is to stop organizing them in terms of technical difficulty. aere's no point in putting

six cylinder engine over there. i meant to get over there today. they have a 55 country squire wagon. all of that is beautiful. there are people, there is content. i wonder if they are even moving. the kid looked a little unhappy here. you also have the girl with a bicycle. learning in a sense to drive. that's a kitty car. kids like toy cars.

the point, children rehearsing what their parents do. you learn how to be an adult. that is part of american society and culture. old-school, this is a 1950 buick . gorgeous.ls are those are classic buick symbols. it.'s a lot of interesting things to

say about it. an effort to make it look heavier. a magic carpet in a lot of ways. the problem is you have to go to a car dealer to buy it. any car salesman here? one of the most disruptive things is they have been able to avoid car dealership. leaving that aside, it's

inconvenient. you touch your phone, that arrives. some companies are trying to do that. i touch my phone and the thing i know amazon drops a box. that purchase process is not in the system. that's the way i want to frame it. i don't want to understand so about the context of what

it meant. what was it like when you taught your daughter and started to drive? what was it to like to buy it? we think to the way about the process of innovation. you think about driverless cars, they are being invented. i will show you the automobile has been invented many times in history. if i asked you off the top of your head when you said. -- when

would you say the automobile was invented? 1900s? 1910. 1898. specific year. i'm going to prove you all wrong. question is not birth, its adoption. times.rn many arereal questions i have two. not why was it invented, but why was it adopted? also, what was it, really? machine forgetting to places. obviously when the driverless car that's when people think about the driverless car are thinking about it -- they don't think about how it sits in your driveway for kids to learn what

it's like to be around and automobile. that's kind of a strange question. by the same token, you would be surprised to learn that driverless cars have been invented many times. sod about technology in the 30's, tested in the fifth these, and proven viable by governments testing in the 1990's. two things are important about that. them, why didn't we pursue them? it turns out as you look at it more deeply, they are very different than the driverless car's coming out. those, look at what driverless cars were like and what driverless cars are like today.

the automobile was invented in 1672. he was a missionary. turn the emperor into a christian. there is a ball. very straightforward. spins a turbine. the big wheel in the back here is for steering. i don't see how that works.

the question didn't work very .ell, but so what why did somebody look at it and go, that is a good start, let's do more? yearse over the last 400 the chinese decided to pursue rat cars. we see that it was invented and we can't quite say that it didn't work, but we can't say it wasn't adopted. is 1790. a steam powered self-propelled road vehicle. no u.s.ime there was patent office. the patent office hasn't been invented yet.

he didn't start selling steam carriages. , noapital available interest. i call this the first amphibious car. very accomplished engineer, he did a lot with process information -- innovation and mills.flower, brad boat that goes a out and digs up the mud. they had this light steam engine in collecting capital -- rather than getting some guys in the wagon he says i'm going to put the wheels on it area may be

we will call at the first amphibious car. no cars yet. this is one of my favorites. this is 1853. the boiler sat in the middle, people sat on either side. a very successful business running people out to long island. did about 30 miles per hour. 1909.odel t came out it perfectly fast. perfectly viable.

it's not about transportation. he wanted to end the fearful misery of horses. this was something developing in this period, this set -- sensibility toward animals. here is another version of it. this is 1856. it is in the smithsonian collection. it is not on -- not on display. it's just a great machine to look at. and it does tell us something about road transport.

it is also in the collection. different times in history you had to produce not just a drawing but a physical model of the machine. he's a patent attorney. he was very smart. lightweight, hydrocarbon engine. able to deal with any reasonable incline. 1879 the vehicle is not produced. he kept filing amendments. it kind of extends.

you have patent pending. in 1895 the automobile has arrived. the automobile was viable by the mid-19th century. not until the 1890's that it's picked up. here we are at 1900. many of you drive our own an electric car question mark tesla? one of the big questions people always ask is why do you get gasoline cars and nonelectric cars.

if you look up the top there are 4000 vehicles in the country. steam and electric outpace the internal combustion. they say internal combustion cars better. you have to ask yourself a more complicated question. pigeons can't swim, goldfish can't fly. in fact the electric vehicle had a good business model.

and also call cleaner, quieter, more sensible. itcould just crack so forth was very different than the business model. the electric vehicle company developed and i want you to think about uber or lift. they have hundreds of taxicabs, most of them in new york city. you could get a sickly a taxi could rent the vehicle

for a week or by the vehicle. what they found as they had a hard time buying taxi service. it was a viable business. a couple of things culturally i will talk about in a minute. , one of of a business the things is an attack on monopoly. this is 1890. a guy who was a big supporter -- they were rapidly expanding. in fairness, just who bore or lift, you do need to have a monopoly.

what good is it if you only have three lifts? the point is to have lots of them. they were providing mobility as a service. what killed them in terms of familiar,they sound they expanded rapidly. and the stock price went. talk about what the automobile is. we can talk about what is the , it wastomobile complicated.

also in the museum's collection, that was the dirty eight motor wagons. they won races and were very durable. a good car. those are not the leading costs. between 1905, 2000 of those were sold. it was a valuable machine. quietelerated easily, was , and was a popular car.

is those were not the first cars after the attention of the people who could afford cars. the people who could afford cars, the rothschilds, the ,anderbilts, the top 10 of 1% they intermarried with europeans and they would cruise back and -- europe.e should notice, it's got lights. a little gaslamp. that is a real car. they were producing them, they were selling them. this is not just a little tricycle.

the french eat this up. they don't eat it up in the sense of transportation. young men inherited wealth. this is maybe one of the most significant vehicles. notice that these vehicles have the motor located under the seat. vehicle has a motor out here. seems simple enough. , this motor gets bigger is why engines are out in front. once they are out in front they

get bigger and bigger and bigger. this creates the modern architecture of the modern mobile -- modern automobile. werewere powerful, they fast, and they were fun. more luxury.le we will make up lost ground and then we will lead the world about all other things. this is from the same article. fortunately none of these cars

in america have adopted that. they've got steering wheels. with thelot to do ackerman steering system. major advance, engineering advance. a lot of things about the automobile i could talk about, why it comes in. it has to do with demographics and the rising immigration. not the good americans from americans --little i say that in the context of how the nativeborn considered them.

there is an effort to get out of the city. more congested, industrialization is happening. the automobile is going to let you do it. partly before the automobile would be the electrification of the streetcar. 1850's, the city was basically as big as you could walk across. in half an hour you can walk a radius. with the electric streetcar that isins to expand, the idea the automobile will focus on that. the id is one of the many elements -- the idea i'm going to focus on is one of the many elements, the bicycle. in a lot of ways the bicycle established the car culture.

you can't even begin to imagine bike races got huge crowds. bicycle advertising. basically playing cards. just to show you a couple of examples, this is a very sociable bicycle. you can't see well here, but i don't even think she has a wheel under there. think like a sidecar it's kind of balanced. not like anybody who has written this. this is a guy named major

taylor, a new book out. number one racer in the country. at a time when african-americans racing against white wasn't typically done. the fact you made a career in the business is incredible. here's what i want to touch on quickly. there are a lot of these women biking clubs and they were part of the suffragettes. things you will notice is they are wearing long skirts. even with your handcuffs. i'm always stuffing it into my sock. office andt to the finally at lunch someone points it out.

let's see if we can tell you what they do. women start wearing lou mers. you can see their ankles. they should cover that up. this is a pretty big deal. people have moral panics about these kinds of things. panic aboutmoral women being on bicycles. themselves. give you the context back in the day, now you get baseball cards cigarette packs, cigar packs, let's look at what this one has.

you can see a lady on a bicycle. this lady has a bicycle. look at all the showing. what are they saying? what is next? they are going to start smoking cigars. it really is this moral panic. let me show you about the bicycle culture and connected to the car culture. it's the sex appeal, but it's also about empowerment. danger and speed. these are called high wielders. wheel, the faster

you go. by the time you up it is five feet in the air. they refer to them as scorcher's, speeders racing through town. 1901, speed and danger. the idea that henry ford, who is a failed businessman at this with beat the best racer the biggest car company in the country was a huge deal. people went wild. one man threw his hat up in the air, when it came down he stomped on it.

he hit his wife on the head to keep her from flying off the handle. anyway, another cyclist. so liberty cyclist, much like major taylor. henry ford got him to do his next racer. 990 9, 1902.he he sitting in what amounts to a drawing room scene. he steering with a flat bar with two handles on it. the engine is huge. five gallons of air with every stroke.

horsepower, did 90 miles per hour. down at the bottom, it is drenched in oil. the oil just sprayed everywhere. here is the beauty of it, he had no idea how to drive. they just said you are a bike racer. he didn't know. that's all very exciting. people rushed out these races. crowds were so thick the police had to come and everything. people loved it. what people didn't love is when

the rich folk started tearing through cities. even dodging the road. called the crusade of , the charge of the 400. that's the joke there. william k vanderbilt the second was the most notorious one of these guys. the ones who really got into it where young men of inherited wealth. the fathers made a fortune. vanderbilt told a reporter, he

certainlth is a ambition as cocaine is to morality. he had nothing to excite him in the automobile shows up and off he goes. there is also an interesting op-ed. anderbilt wanted to build raceway on long island. no other cars. saidimes editorialized and they don't want that. was how close they could get to pedestrians without killing them. to how we deal with this problem. we begin to try to control the chaos of traffic.

order from chaos, we need to bring order from chaos. show you the pretty remarkable scene. four days before the san francisco earthquake, a company that did these films on the front of her streetcar. you will see the people turn and look at them. is lookant you to do through the traffic. there is no sound in the original. very sympathetic and thoughtful job of adding a. sense oft, i hope, a the way that sounds.

>> that will be our stop. you see a bunch of cars in there. they are the same cars. i'm pretty sure you hire these cars. it does give you a sense of what is happening. crazier, they weave in and out. it's chaos. it does work.

it is a functional space. on lots of streets, kids playing. the street is a multifunctional space. in, itautomobile comes develops the concern about traffic crashes. i'm going to jump ahead for just a second. 1935 was a pivotal year. one was a spike in automobile traffic death. it just keeps going up in the middle of the depression. out in article came

1935. slow down, drive carefully. nobody had done a full on blood and gore story. he visits actual accidents right up until this happened. he talks about bones sticking out. can onlyf blood you see a hole where a mouse was -- mouth was. gruesome stuff. it does have an impact. it does not make people drive safer. gallup polls.

they mean the bad drivers. the aaa comes out with a driver's ed pamphlet in 1936. the insurance industry comes out with a textbook. actually a psycho technologist. 1930's.the in a period where science is on the ascendant. the expectation is that science can solve problems. i'm going to talk about fixing the driver, fixing the road and fixing the car, but mostly fixing the car -- that i'm mostly going to take fixing the car out of the picture. ralph nader wasn't just a

presidential candidate, he wrote --the face all of the things in an automotive cocoon. -- ating sudden death least in the rhetoric of driver safety. we have better breaks. a safer roof that won't crush. american auto companies lead safety glass, seatbelts, airbags, at every turn.

it really was on the 1930's. particularly studebaker, kyle named paul austin -- a guy named paul austin. than the 1960nt solution. what are we going to do? this is 1903 on the right. if this is the first set of traffic rules set up in new york city. he recalled getting caught in a blockade. this blockade at the time, it's already like 12 wagons here.

cup -- thed the .olice department then there are things we take for granted. the other car has the right-of-way. that spread, various state and local agents come together, particularly in the 1920's, and begin to create a uniform code. is drivingproblems from mississippi to alabama and the rules change. on the left is a traffic light. this is fascinating to me. you come to an intersection, there is a traffic light. running a red light is one of the most dangerous things that happens. red light cameras are supposed to stop. which we see going in,

i'm talking about a modern noticedrotary, have you he's showing up? there are going to be more of them. you are going to be safer. the traffic light is the solution. let's make sure people behave. if people don't behave we have a problem. police are out there surveilling, keeping an eye on everything. you may recognize if you have called kids -- what's it -- the hate you give. it centers around the shooting of a young black man, unarmed black man by a police man.

ofthe right is the shooting castile. .e was unarmed was it justifiable? was it not? african-american men are not necessarily shot more than other people then were whole or -- than people who were pulled over, they are just pulled over more. they are searched way more. police often and badly. the reality is we are breaking the rules all the time. you always signal.

never roll through a stop sign. and you never had a brake light out. what we really have is a set of rules and it starts in 19: -- in 1903. you are a gangk member. they can even arrest you. they can haul you into jail. that's weird. whilek about driving black, because of the way we decided to improve the safety of motor vehicle traffic, we are all susceptible to the general warrant.

this is an expert in the 90's. the supreme court decided checkpoints were constitutional. drivingagainst drunk got a hold of president reagan's year and said our children are being killed by these dastardly drunk drivers. you have to get them off the road. a lot of problems with that. the methods they wanted to use were ineffectual. most children who die in drunk driving accidents are writing with a -- with the drunk or inebriated driver. sued for the fourth amendment, illegal search and seizure. therefore this is ok.

the statistics we used to talk about this. very strange. i did some dissertation work. detroit reporters psychopathic clinic prayed if you got a few judgeny or something the thought was weird in the courtroom, he would send you to the psychologist. , iy would do a full workup test, attitude test, these,gence test, and this was the famous psychiatrist.

this was a stage photo from the detroit news. it's going to be an object of measurement. i think these two ladies must be psychologists. what they were called, patients. did my dissertation, my doctoral work on this. drivers.ad -- they do athat psychiatric test. or maybe they think you are a little bit of this -- a little

bit of a sociopath. has nothing to do with whether or not you are a good driver. typically places like syria. that would correlate very well with the outcome of your -- the deposition of your case. let's keep going. there is another way to fix the driver, driver education. up -- hand up if you did it in public school. here is the local government paying for you. isn't that strange? why is that part of the curriculum? the easier it got to

drive, the double clutching was gone, the text just got bigger and bigger. about how to operate the vehicle. it was about becoming an adult. other things i'm going to try to show you. this is the 1930's. different cities would get awarded the safest city. i think this is kansas city but i'm not sure. is the schoolchildren safety parade going before the reviewing stand. it's not a great image. notice this sign right here. that seems to be conflating a

couple of different ideas. i've always been fascinated by that. this is a short film that is a march on washington, a parade of school safety patrols. there is joe dimaggio, fairly unclear. we have the orange belt around here. shoulder strap. -- vote for safety.

where do you see the guy with the shield? just a quick pause if i can. ofthe 1980's it was a side the biggest study of driver education. was the federal government were more interested in getting driver education. there was more traffic involvement. it was not productive. look at that. what is that about?

careful. confederate soldiers, southern flag, that is ok. look at this. there they are. against accidents. the flags, the white stresses. -- white dresses. go away. wait. we have to present again. help me out. everybody relax. talk going to come together.

that's what we are going to do. that's all right. we will get to review everything very soon. it's a problem with the slides. ok. some of the weird ways we tried to do it. the solution we have now is eliminate the driver. if we canke to see engineer a better road. a gramll year, 1935 would painting. garah -- graham wood p ainting. the advice would be, don't rush past another vehicle. don't speed. that's a two lane road.

you're a bad driver. beautiful bright red truck. people will die. it will be gruesome. that of people looked at and said, we need more laws. we have to get bad drivers off the road. others have said, let's get rid of the ridge road. that's exactly what the began to do. we think of the entity -- interstate highway system in 1956. eisenhower, depend barbecues. the planning begins in the 1930's and begins in this context. it's all the things you would expect. it's all about work. a lot of shovels to build a highway. it's about safety. the interstate highway system is twice as safe as other roads and surface streets.

it's about getting rid of those to vehiclesnces running willy-nilly over the landscape. we need to control them. instead of it being a symbol of freedom, but really about freedom. it's about controlling traffic. i like to think of it as a railroad. a concrete railroad with rubber tires. like missing or stop on the subway if you missed your exit. you have to go to the next one, turnaround, take the train back. you get on and off only in certain places. that's what makes it work. the other element of it is urban renewal. this is the frontispiece for the original report describing the interstate highway system.

this was delivered to fdr. he tries to get it funded, and has a hard time. also, 1939-1936. not a huge distance and time. you have the war in between. it's also about urban renewal. you think of a come in, that is bad. -- you think highways come in, that is bad. it's almost untenable. humblestby the citizens, they fringe the course. these are the city slums. it's a blight near its very core. we will come in and use highways as a way to rebuild the city. this is exactly what they did. if you went to the world's fair

in 1939, you got that pain, i want one of those. ralph nader, no friend of general motors, he recalls going as a young kid and walking with his parents holding his hand and rushing off and yelling gm. he was so excited about the exhibit. lots of people were. this was the idea. look at how wide that is. it looks like eight lanes. they go right to the city. you turn the city, and there a vertical superblock of towers. he would wait in a long line. -- you would wait in a long line. you would sit in something o-round.he carry-g it would rotate around this diorama.

it was built by traffic engineers. time?r we doing on ok? we have a little ways to go. let's look at what happened with those highways. they are doing fine. -- when they are out in the sticks. this is washington, d.c.. this is the 1950 layout for the freeways that go through the city. here is the inner beltway. you can see the district lines here. this is inside the district. the beltway. that will work out good. 66 will come in and keep going. is 395.this

that seemed like a good idea. i-95 would cut right across here. there'd be something called the three sixers bridge. take the highway right across the river. revitalize the city and get rid of the slums. here's how people lived in those slums. this happened all across the country. i will tell you about d.c.. i have been thinking about this lately. followingou have been hogan's plan to widen the highways and put in dynamic tolls, a very high-tech solution. the reality is adding highways. what got me was the rhetoric. his secretary of transportation, who, by the way, was working for

a company that built dynamic told highways. he got in trouble for this fitting thing. -- bidding thing. people are against this. -- " alained about an very active vocal minority opposed to relieving the city's congestion." he said we need more highway lanes. that there areid a bunch of pro-traffic activists. orre they "plan to kep the -- keep the roads filled with traffic." that's not as bad as the 60's. here is angela rooney. newspaper, the becauseon post, quote "

everything from communists to pinkos, to that little band of discontented people." that conflict is there. it is still there. i will try to keep moving. this is sammy abbott. he is an old school guy. he was an old school labor rights guy. a union organizer back in the 30's. he knew how to organize people to get things going. this is reginald booker. he was the president. they adopted this slogan. " white man's roads through black men's homes." if you look across the country, that was very much true. some mayors said that is why we want to do this. we want to racially segregate this town. we want to tear up west

cincinnati and throw in a multilane exchange. d.c., it wasn't quite that way. white and black neighborhoods they were going through. but that really captured the moment. that's interesting. it's interesting we are facing that again. let's check about driverless car's. -- let's talk about driverless car's. what kind of cars we getting? cars in and simple 1890. we are not getting mobility as a service in the 1890's. had them sit with a car dealer and buy a buick. that's not what is going on now. why driverless car is now -- cars now? if you look at the right handling companies, they aren't

making money. one of the biggest problems is they have to pay people to drive cars. they try to crush that labor and squeeze payouts. for -- i gotere here and in unber -- i sa -- uber-- and he says i can only drive for lyft, because they kept squeezing drivers. when it came to the mobile itself, driverless cars of the past. -- the automobile itself, driverless cars of the past. what kind of cars we getting now and how is it different? there's a simple way to think about it. communitarian.

libertarian. this is -- this is libertarian. the less government involvement is better for them now. not building highways is better for them. is 1958. this -- these ads appeared in magazines for electric companies trying to keep the government of the electric grid. trying to stop nuclear power from being developed by the government. that way they could spit -- make money selling electricity. right, if youe searched on the internet to look for driverless car's, every other article uses this image. no one point out where it comes from. it comes from these electric companies. the thing you'll notice is it has no connection to current driverless cars. that's a lane marker. it's going right down the center

of a lane. as a side note, all the silicon , many of them, such as google and others are pursuing cars. it's part of the same campaign. there are pursuing driverless flying saucers. -- they are not pursuing driverless flying saucers. this is what i want. puppy in the back. groceries. mom at the wheel. at the flying saucer. that -- that is a flying saucer. notice there are two flying saucer families. that is what electricity will bring you. this is science fiction. this in 1958 is science fact.

1958. rca, cutting edge of electronics , the test driverless cars. this is not a test track. you can see the guy on your right -- this is on a test track. there is no steering wheel. there a joystick. no steering wheel. they are following and apollo. -- an impala. there is. a driverless car. it works. going to show you -- i'm going to tell you why not. why did they not pursue this? in 1958, gm was the most profitable in the country.

cooperationuired with the people who made the roads. the connection between the government in general motors is very much there. here is the way that general motors played it. firebird two. there are three of them. let's see if it will play. >> do you think great power in small packages? that's the amazing new generator. exhaust heat is no longer a problem. the experiment of car of tomorrow has a science fiction appearance.

it is practical and usable in every design. feasible for the future. here, tomorrow's driver might just push a button and the car would drive itself. would pickreceivers up various impulses and roll it along in complete safety. inside the car, a tv screen reveals travel information and gives highway and weather reports. car --: tv screen in the tv screen in the car? that's there. this was viable. now i'm going to show you the real thing that is going on in 1977 -- 1997. this was right at the end of the building of the interstate highway system. there was going to have to be some real authorization. will we build more highways? let's see if we can make our existing highways more efficient. let's squeeze more cars onto the road.

let's reduce contact -- congestion. systems will be able to steer around obstacles and avoid them. it will be more relaxing because it will be self-driving. can drive inches apart. since 1997, it is vh quality -- vhs quality. it will show you two different things. a pontiac swerving and a bunch of buicks behaving like they are in the army. here r. driving with no hands. we are coming up to this obstacle appear. i went with the other traffic thing. >> it is swerving.

>> we are around it. no hands. consortium calls them the technical feasibility of various types of automated highway technology. how they will increase safety and traffic and action -- congestion. >> there will be platoons of vehicles closely together. i find it hilarious. pontiac's slogan is we build excitement. they just march along in this thing. it works. it required infrastructure. it was advanced by the government. i will rep. quigley: talking about those same -- i will wrap up quickly using those same themes.

chao talkinge about driverless cars. she mixes up different technologies. a future where time spent commuting is reduced. the major factor 94% of all fatal crashes is human error. -- ever. advanced driver systems. we have ads. emergency braking. lane keeping assessed keeps you out of -- keep you in your lane. -- keeps you in your lane. safety. here is elon musk who suggests his cars are fully self-driving or will be next week. every year we delay this, more people die. journaliststacking

who are complaining about the stock. he said that, if in writing an article that is negative that you dissuade people from using an autonomous vehicle, you are killing people. anthony, involved in the cougar -- the google suit. once you make a car better than the drivers, it's irresponsible to have them there. part of what is driving him, this is similar talking about --, the fact that 33 million 33,000 americans are killed by highway accidents every year. 90% of the time by human error. they want to eliminate the driver because we are bad drivers. it's not true.

this is the 94% fallacy. they'll read this document, which says, 94% of accidents were caused. reason foritical crashes investigated international k -- motor vehicle doesn't say deposit the crashes. you have to read the footnotes. nobody reads the footnotes. reason ishe critical an important part of the description of events leading up to the crash, it is not intended to be interpreted as the cause of the crash, nor the assignment of fall to the driver, vehicle or environment. always -- i'm surprised it's not 100%. the driver is always the last

link in the chain. the driver can always avoid the accident. no matter how bad in intersection, and we know there are bad intersections. people go through the millions of times without crashing. thousands of times without crashing. therefore, it must be my fault. it is only my fault because i could have stopped it. they could have stopped at long before. the way to stop it is to not get rid of me, it's to fix the road, the infrastructure, so that we are using our vehicles last, driving them slower, and they are safer. and the roads are safer. i think i'm almost done. what are these driverless cars? the reason they exist the way they do is because they came out of defense research projects. up with was to come self-driving vehicles because they had to keep sending home notes to people who died and

send the priest over. this was bad. guys whorly, the poor were contractors driving these fuel trucks to fill up the tanks. they were getting blown up. you can't put a wire in the road in iraq. the things in the road in iraq blow up. you need something that operates on its own. here are some of the real reasons. again, going back. huber, 120 billion was there last valuation. now they are at 68 billion. the market cap is 68 billion. when they heard about self-driving car's was, we were going to take all of that 30%, we will keep. they would take the entire affair. fare.n -- the entire the projects codename is $. there's a new book out right

now. i put it right there for you. the author describes that. you cannot make money selling cars. if you start with that quote on the bottom, auto companies earn less than the cost of capital. most companies destroy value. this guy a professor of finance. money-losing is a operation globally. what do the car companies want to do? they want to get rid of the drivers. money and some -- maybe someday they will be profitable. the want to become like facebooks and so forth. general motors has a market cap of 57 billion, less than you. uber. -- stock price, 5.4. ford, 7.1. uber, they don't have one

because they lose money. amazon, 75. facebook, 35. that's what they want to be. they want to have the cost of capital to go down so they can make money. the last thing i will be with you. there are no driverless cars. there are no driverless cars. this has been a real problem. a columnist for the new york times, i will start with the one of the bottom there. self-driving car is not autonomous. it's not like you sit in the backseat and let things go. terrified new york times columnist confuses volvo with magical driverless car. people are dying. was the death of

a man named josh brown. he was driving his tesla and using it on autopilot. we talk about operational domain and all that. the ntsb studied it. they found that calling this autopilot,rless, adding to the problem is the moniker autopilot. they need not pay attention to the driving task, because the autopilot is doing anything is what people might think. that's exactly what happened. josh brown was not paying attention. he drove over the back end a semi trailer. he shaved off the top of his car and his head. there have been four of these that we know of. one in china. walter wong in california. jeremy banner. also elaine herzberg. she was killed by a self-driving test card.

-- car. the city driver was paying no attention. these things do not work at. they are not safe. -- do not work yet. they are not safe. that is the end of my road trip. really thank you. you have been very patient. i could go on forever. i love this stuff. than loving and talking is listening. youuld love to hear what have to comment on, say, you want to know how to change your oil or retire, i will help you. car buying advice, anything. stock tips. no. thank you. [applause] every time i do a talk, i

have a tough time doing questions. liability, have they sorted out the liability and some of these crashes -- in some of these crashes? car, are people in this but someone has developed the software, and someone has belted. where are we at within -- built it. where are we with the assignment of blame? >> a couple of things. the society of automotive engineers developed something called the levels of driverless cars. they start with zero. they work their way up from controlling the breaks and gas in steering. when you get to five, it is full self-driving.

when i don't have to pay car insurance, and the car company pays the car insurance, that is full self-driving. me is fully self driving. what has happened recently with the tesla crosses -- crashes, there are some suits out, one in china and one year -- here. the argument, they have this thing in the manual that says by the way, you have to keep your hands on the wheel. but there are all kinds of ways that doesn't work and the ntsb when they studied this saw that. so far, nobody seems to be holding these vehicle companies or vehicles responsible for the crashes. yes? >> do you see a time when it becomes mandatory to do a taunus driving? be: i can imagine that, to

honest with you. if the argument is about safety, of safety have plenty systems that already make driving very safe. likei can see is things keeping cars out of cities, it would be very expensive in the city, where you have pedestrians and so forth. -- about 30,000, 40,000 deaths a year, about 10,000 our alcohol that related. we have the technology to keep people from driving drunk and we don't. the government has had every opportunity to solve problems like speed. the european union has just -- all newan all-new

cars will have speed governors. if you are on a 100 kilometer road, the car will not go over 100 kilometers. we have gps and the technology, it is not hard. at ald see that coming in think that's different than saying you can't drive. people want to drive. licenseso drivers become not required? dan: when did they become not required? it happened in the 1930's and spread from more populist states out to places like north dakota. they on, you would go to dmv and they would say, are you insane and you would say no and you would get a license. driver testing did not come in

1950's, verythe late. people drove without licenses for a long time. you showed an 1895 patent. who does the patent holder s ue? so george selden had a thent in 1895, and he sued largest automaker in the country and he fought for a while and then he settled. 1.25% of ther royalty. selden was now part of the

consortium that included the electric vehicle company. soy had bought the patent, he got a piece of it, the electric vehicle got a piece of part of it went to the automobile license association members. and probably have that wrong. they were essentially an industry group, a trade group. they are often referred to as patent trolls. that comes out of the history of henry ford. they had become known as patent trolls. they eventually had most of the automakers part of the trade association and it did a lot of good things. boltxample, 8000 different sizes for cars. they consolidated that could --

that. on the other hand, they were a monopoly in singh who could and could not be part of this. henry ford tried to join and he was rebuffed. that patent fight went on years and years. end, the patent was declared valid but only for a particular type of engine in the patent so it was essentially thrown out. by that time it had about a year's run. it's a fascinating story. if you're interested in following it up, i am really proud of the way i treat it in there because so many of the other stories are just based on henry ford. does that answer you? maybe too much. >> your presentation makes it sound like autonomous vehicles are inevitable in the u.s. i'm interested in your opinion about the timing. how long it will be before the

majority of vehicles are autonomous vehicles and how long until virtually all vehicles are --aunus -- are a taunus autonomous. dan: i don't like to tell people it will never happen. i do think that's a possibility. it much harder. part of that is how bad the roads are an drivers keep getting blamed. it turns out it is hard for robots to negotiated. i see it as a very long time before any sort of majority. more cars and drivers in the country, license drivers, 240 million or so. we sell about 17 million new cars, average car is about 12 years old.

even if all of them were self driving tomorrow, or looking at two decades before we all bought them. presuming me all by them. cost ofnd thing is the these vehicles because of the sensors and computing power is very large. finally, they don't work. [laughter] dan: right? cases, butabout edge it is all edge cases. i certainly see them being used on a campus or in a small area or to get around a small city. we are very far away from outlawing driving and it all being a taunus -- autonomous. >> [indiscernible] countryan drive across [indiscernible] mile one is tricky,

more than the range of a gasoline car. there are two possibilities for the technology. , but you50-300 miles also need to be able to charge in six minutes. that is a tricky business. porsche says are coming out with one. miles,an 500 word -- very fast charging. now, you have to sit and wait for half an hour. but what if you show up and 70 is already sitting there for half an hour -- and somebody is already sitting there for half an hour? it's a problem. but i think we are getting there. it seemed like in your presentation we went from the advent of the car to driverless [indiscernible]

and the things happening now where there is talking between the vehicles. what do you think about that? dan: it is referred to as v2v. what it means -- it's like the impala i showa -- you where the technology is fairly simple. , and theios, sensors most basic way to put it is it tells the cars to not be in the same place at the same time. thisadio spectrum to do was allocated in about 2000, maybe a little earlier. auto companies are not excited about it and has been fighting it a long time. they say they don't want to get stuck with an old technology, they want to use 5g cellular and said, and they are not convinced

it works. that's what they said about seatbelts, airbags, safety glass, etc. the pattern of behavior worries me. on the other hand, the 5g idea, it tries to do the same thing. the reason they are excited about that is once you have 5g in a car, all of this delicious data comes in. amazon can sell you things. i think that is what is going on. there's no reason not to have it. localities have put it in traffic lights and all of that. it's a shame it hasn't happened, it's a lot of good stuff. it's in the book. i am happy to stay and talk. i was reading recently that in canada, researchers are developing morality software for

driverless cars so that the car ridinghat if grandma is a bicycle and a squirrel goes across the road, it is ok to hit the squirrel but not grandma. [laughter] >> do you see challenges with developing that type of technology? dan: that is the next question. i love this part. i argue that is a kind of totalizing conversation. in other words, what they are trying to do is say the automobile, the driverless car is a new kind of moral actor. it enters a space which is going to force it to make decisions that human beings make now. it doesn't have road or what is in the

who is driving. but there has been a lot of coverage of that. i call it the amorality of robot cars. there is some stuff on the web. there is already a moral automobilen the driver-road system. thinkc engineers don't about safety in the mobility, they think about mobility and then safety. that is a moral choice. i think other than the fact that philosophers are trying to make absurdg, it is an conversation. i will read you very quickly. at some level, it's the useful college because kids in are learning the program and should think about this stuff.

there is this guy who has written a bunch of things. computers to decide who lives and dies in a driverless car. here is a terrible idea, robot cars with adjustable ethics. consider the problem of a car barreling down the street with a crippled boy, should base work to -- should it swerve to avoid the boy and kill the driver? or just hope for the basque -- the best? kid in street is greater

kid,15, line print: kill we are sorry for your loss. the real question is not which way should the porsche turn, the real question is why is the porsche going so fast in the first place? the porsche should not be in that situation. it should not be tailgating a truck that drops boxes and has to swerve. that's the problem with the driverless car. sorry, i get excited. i can take more questions but clearly we need to wrap up. thank you. [applause] >> american history tv is on

c-span3 every weekend, and all of our programs are archived on our website at c-span.org/history. in can watch lectures college classrooms, tors of historic sites, archival films, and see our schedule about coming programs. that is c-span.org/history. visit ton our sheridan, wyoming, we take you to the brinton museum to look at american and indian art that makes up the collection. >> the brinton museum is a very complex institution because not only are we an art museum, but we are also history and we have natural history as well. we lie on 620 acres of beautiful ranch land here.