The police could drive your future car remotely

[JorgeA]

I was going to post this in the IoT thread, but as there doesn't seem to be a direct IoT angle I decided to post it separately:
The police could be controlling your self-driving car

Quote

One of the biggest issues will be the rules under which public infrastructures and public safety officers may be empowered to override how autonomous vehicles are controlled.

It is not hard to imagine why they might want such override power. One is for traffic control. As AVs proliferate there are many advantages to having them talk with intelligent roadways, the better to use scarce freeway space. Controls may also be imposed to leave lanes clear for emergency vehicles or crowded busses. Road conditions that are hard to detect by AV sensors, like weather-related lane closures, may also be more efficiently and fairly handled by having roadways or emergency crews redirect AVs away from problematic lanes, as well as around police, fire, and EMS activity. Overrides could be used to restrict certain vehicles from sensitive locations, like military sites.

More intrusive controls may be called for to deal with crime. For instance, high-speed chases could become a thing of the past. The vehicles of drunk/drugged individuals who insist on doing their own driving could be pulled over if their cars’ actions could be controlled from the outside. To prevent great mayhem, police may dearly want to override the use of automated vehicles by terrorists or other criminals.

At first glance this idea might sound appealing, but when we consider how behaviors that used to be accepted can be declared illegal or even criminal, we have to stop and think if we really want to give this kind of power to government. More broadly, history shows that liberal democracies can turn and have turned into authoritarian, even tyrannical, regimes; giving government this kind of capability would make the next turn to authoritarianism that much harder to reverse.

--JorgeA

[Tripredacus]

These kind of articles are written like they are talking about some future scifi world. Sure this type of highway control system could exist, but would only make sense if it were on its own. Segregated roadways that can be computer controlled and the only regular traffic would be the computer controlled vehicles. That will be required because regular "old fashioned" cars will still exist for a long time.