Dr. Ashley Nunes studies transportation safety, regulatory policy, and behavioral economics. He earned his Ph.D. in engineering psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where he examined the scientific merit of raising controller retirement ages. Dr. Nunes has previously written for the Financial Times, the Washington Post and The Globe and Mail among others, and his long-form content has appeared in the Atlantic, the New Statesman, and the American Scientist.
More About Ashley Nunes
"Self-driving technology can deliver considerable benefits to society, but realizing those benefits will require that safety and profitability go hand-in-hand. Our politicians need to craft laws that do just that."
"This reality raises an important question: how many driverless cars can one person safely watch? On this issue, auto makers and their ride-hailing counterparts have been conspicuously silent. The reason? They haven’t figured it out. Until they do, I won’t be getting into a driverless cab, Uber or otherwise."
"The word “driverless” has increasingly become synonymous with “humanless”. Society will apparently be better off when robots whisk us around. This may be true. But this vision demands a guarantee of technological perfection – a guarantee car manufacturers are yet to give."
"Canadians deserve better. Until ride-hailing companies can pay more than lip service to the issue of driver distraction, their operations should be curbed. Our lives depend on it."
"Legislation on the testing of self-driving cars does not address liability and safety concerns, warn Ashley Nunes, Bryan Reimer and Joseph F. Coughlin."
"In our research, we wanted to determine if this was right. Is it realistic to expect robotaxis to become cost-competitive with owning older vehicles any time soon? The answer, according to our analysis, is no."
"Autonomous vehicles pose challenges of their own. GM has invested billions of dollars in the technology. The company plans to launch autonomous taxi services early next year, although it has been quiet on where exactly. But many people are concerned about the technology’s safety. A Pew survey found the American public to be more worried than enthusiastic about autonomous vehicles. That survey was conducted before the crash of a self-driving car this year in which a woman crossing a street on foot was killed."