B.C. not ready for new technologies like driverless cars, say critics

If there’s one thing Metro Vancouverites obsess over — other than real estate — it’s traffic.

Many hope technology will help ease congestion on our roads.

“Anything that can be done routinely by humans right now will be done by a computer in the next 10 or 15 or 20 years and that will be as profound an effect on society as the Industrial Revolution was a couple of hundred years ago,” said Brian Flemming, a senior fellow with the Van Horne Institute.

READ MORE: GM Canada gets mandate for driverless car technology

Flemming was one of several guest speakers at Thursday’s Transportation Conference looking at how technology is going to change everything. His focus: the automated vehicle or driverless car.

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“I think it’s only about five years before you’ll see one here, see it on the Coquihalla or Sea to Sky Highway or somewhere,” he said.

The driverless vehicle could put millions of people, like taxi and truck drivers, out of work. That means such disruptive technology could prove to be a political issue.

“It impacts everybody,” said Keith Sashaw of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies. “This is something that the politicians, the regulators, everybody has to be cognizant of. That’s one of the issues we’re going to have to work through is how are we going to get in tune with that, how are we going to ensure that the public understands what’s going on and they’re comfortable with adopting new technologies.”

READ MORE: Google expects us to be using driverless cars in 2 to 5 years

“I think we’re behind and the one opportunity I think that the new government has in Ottawa before they start lashing out tons of money is to think carefully about some of the things that are coming down the pike like automated vehicles,” added Flemming.

B.C. highways already feature technologies like variable speed signs that adjust to driving conditions and infrared cameras that spot wildlife and trigger a warning sign.

These are welcome safety enhancements but the driverless car will be a game-changer and its arrival, experts say, is closer than you think.