UBER THE TOP You're driving me crazy

Posted on 08/25/2016

Remember the old ‘Bob Newhart Show’ in which Howard, his goofy next-door neighbor, was a navigator for a commercial airline that looked very much like Pan Am or TWA?

They didn’t make that up although their timing may have been a little off - there really were navigators on the flight deck until the early 80’s. In fact they once sat next to the radio operator and the flight engineer, right behind the captain and the co-pilot – aka the first officer.
While radio operators went away a very long time ago, a few flight engineers can still be found on older aircraft such as Boeing 747’s. I always liked the third man up there as he (I never saw a ‘she’ in the job) acted as kind of a tiebreaker between the two big egos in the drivers’ seats.
Nowadays, whether it be on an A380 or a Q400, two pilots of the homo sapiens variety is the norm. There is however a third pilot that does the lion’s share of the work on most trips – George, as he’s often known, the autopilot or auto flight system.
The ‘AP’ is essentially a computer that allows the pilots to avoid having to maintain a “hands on” mode throughout the flight. While the humanoids will taxi the aircraft on the ground and take charge of the vast majority of takeoffs and landings they generally cede the en route segment to the software. It is generally recognized that for a lot of long-haul pilots, staying awake is the biggest challenge.
But let’s come down to earth and consider how autopilots are playing out on terra firma with ‘autonomous’ or ‘self-driving’ car being a hot topic in recent years. Millions of dollars are being sunk into the concept with the likes of Google leading the way: As of June this year they had reportedly logged in excess of 1.7 million miles in test driving their fleet with only a few accidents of note.
Tesla was not as fortunate when last month a driver using their autopilot service died after colliding with a tractor-trailer that apparently neither the driver nor the computer saw coming. In one report the (late) driver was criticized by Tesla for not heeding the car’s somewhat bizarre warning that, “the driver is required to keep his hands on the steering wheel at all times.” It seems the unfortunate car owner had been reading rather than monitoring the computer’s auto-driving skills. He won’t make that mistake again.
For some years now ride sharing giant Uber has made no bones about its intention to replace its million plus drivers with a self-driving car service just as quickly as technology – and public acceptance - will permit. And now, in their first live trial, Pittsburgh Uberfans are getting the chance to try flying solo – well sort of.
Pittsburgh riders request cars through the app as usual and are randomly paired with a driverless car. The good news is that for the time being such trips are be free. The somewhat odd news however is that when your ‘driverless’ car pulls up at the designated pickup spot, it will in fact have not none, not one, but two people sitting in the front seats.
According to Uber, the non-driver in the former driver’s seat “is there to sit with their fingertips on the wheel ready to take control if the car encounters an unexpected obstacle.” Meanwhile a ‘co-pilot’ in the front passenger seat is there to take notes on a laptop and every moment of the trip is recorded on internal and external cameras, “so that any glitches can be ironed out.”
The part I really love is that each car will be equipped with a tablet computer in the back seat to tell unsuspecting riders what the hell is going on – my phraseology not Uber’s! According to Uber’s engineering director Raffi Krikorian, “the goal is to wean riders off having drivers in the car, so we don’t want them talking to our safety drivers.”
So let’s just recap that: Your ‘driverless’ car has two people in the front seats, one of whom has his hands on the steering wheel but isn’t actually controlling the vehicle, while the other is tapping away at a laptop. Meanwhile you (the passenger) are not permitted to talk to either of them. Hmm – sure sounds like a really relaxing experience!
If you’re headed in that direction, Pittsburgh does apparently have an excellent public transit system that’s used by 230,000 people a day and - get this - their busses have only one driver who is responsible for steering the vehicle through the streets. All sounds very sensible.
Uber and out.