Imagine this: You’re leaving work,
walking to your car, and you find an empty parking spot — someone stole
your brand new Tesla (or whatever fancy autonomous car you’re driving).
When you call the police, they ask your permission for a “takeover,”
which you promptly give them. Next thing you know, your car is driving
itself to the nearest police station. And here’s the kicker — if the
thief is inside he will remain locked inside until police can arrest
them.
This futuristic and almost
slapstick scenario is closer than we think, says Chief Innovation
Officer Hans Schönfeld who works for the Dutch police. Currently, his
team has already done several experiments to test the crime-halting
possibilities of autonomous cars.
“We wanted to know if we can make
them stop or drive them to certain locations,” Schönfeld tells me. “And
the result is: yes, we probably can.”
“The police tested several cars;
Tesla, Audi,
Mercedes, and Toyota,” he continues. “We do this in collaboration with
these car companies because this information is valuable to them, too.
If we can hack into their cars, others can as well.”
Other car makers already built similar
features into their vehicles, but without the driverless aspect. GM equipped 17,000 of its 2009 units with “remote
ignition block,” a kill switch that can turn off the engine in case the
car is reported stolen.
Before you start referencing
dystopian cop movies in your head (“that’s exactly like Upgrade!”),
rest assured; we’re still years away from cars driving themselves into
custody. Not least because most citizens currently can’t legally drive
autonomous cars on public roads.
But it’s not just self-driving cars
that are changing how police work. Mobility as a whole is rapidly
developing and law enforcement organizations need to keep up.
The first phase, which we’ve been
in for some years now, brought intelligent cars — cars with chips that
collect data about speed, braking power, and more. Whenever car
accidents happen, police can read these chips to better pinpoint the
circumstances.
“It helps us differentiate between
killing someone by accident — someone speeding just a little — and
manslaughter — someone driving way too fast while hitting the victim,”
explains Schönfeld.
While Schönfeld expects it will take up
to 10 years before self-driving cars are available in the Netherlands,
connected cars — or phase two — will go mainstream sooner.
Connected cars have internet
access and are often also connected to local wireless networks. This
allows them to connect to other devices, both inside and outside, and
exchange data.
With public IoT (Internet of
Things) becoming increasingly common in the Netherlands, these cars
will soon communicate with other smart machines around them, like
traffic lights or street lights, and even with each other.
A few months ago, Dutch
researchers tested a fleet of seven connected cars, all
equipped with cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC), on a cleared
stretch of highway. The cars could adapt their speech to each other
and talk to intelligent traffic lights on the road.
“The expected advantage of
cruise control is that roads can be used more efficiently,” said
Elisabeth Post who worked on the project. “It allows for more cars on
the road simultaneously as well as more cars utilizing the same green
light.”
Schönfeld envisions a near future
where cars will know everything about their surroundings, as well as
you, the driver. This constant data collection could save your life
someday, he adds.
“Let’s say you’ve been in an
accident. It’s night, it’s dark, and you’re lying in a ditch
somewhere. Your car will know there’s been an accident because it
monitors g-forces. It will be able to call an ambulance, communicate
where the accident happened, what the car looks like, and even who was
driving by measuring the driver’s weight.”
It’s not all butterflies and rainbows,
though. Yes, self-driving-cars will probably increase road safety and
benefit the environment, but criminals will be driving them too. Imagine
a driverless getaway car after a bank robbery. Now all passengers have
their hands free to shoot pursuers.
Terrorism also comes to mind.
Self-driving cars become driving bombs when they’re loaded with
explosives; suicide bombers won’t be needed to plan an attack.
“Once we’re all driving autonomous
cars, I imagine we need systems that detect cars without passengers
inside, specifically in crowded, public spaces,” says Schönfeld.