According to this article, cars of the future will vibrate, beep, and exude scents at you. Why? In the name of reducing accidents. The idea is that if you're not seeing that the car in front of you is slowing down, maybe a jostle via the steering wheel, pedals, or seat belt will grab your attention. And, if you're a stressed-out driver, wafting lavender or citrus scents may calm you down.
Fair ideas, I guess. But tell me: if the car already knows that the car ahead is slowing down, why not slow down with it? If most every car on the road had some look-ahead capability and could react to it using some basic heuristics, then one could argue we'd have fewer accidents that rely on the hand-eye coordination of the driver.
I think it's a significant hurdle for a driver to accept losing control of the vehicle at any time, even though the vehicle could be better at a specific task than the driver. Naturally, those drivers don't think anything of the planes they get in to travel, and how much of their trip is computer-controlled.
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