I just received a breathless note from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty – a man so easily alarmed he ought to know better than to spend his precious spare time reading newspapers. Every page has something guaranteed to ring his bell. And yet he allowed himself to get drawn in to an article in the New York Times about the federal government and driverless cars.

As a result, he is pleading with me to use my vast connection with potentially dozens of blog readers to generate concern about the coming auto-dronepocalypse on our streets and highways.

“I don’t think people are fully aware of the potential threat posed by these road robots! Don’t get me wrong – I have more faith in machines than I do in people. Every human being is a string of accidents waiting to happen! But these autonomous autos were designed and built by humans, and because they are the result of the work of fools, there is no way they can be foolproof!”

But the thing that really got him was this quote from the article:

It is up to state and local governments to decide whether autonomous or semiautonomous cars are allowed on public roads. States including California, Nevada and Florida have already legalized driverless cars. They are not explicitly illegal in other states, because there is no law that says cars must have drivers.

“‘… there is no law that says cars must have drivers!’ Do you realize what this means? It is a gigantic loophole in our legal code – big enough for your mammoth SUV to drive through with all its sensors and GPS turned off! Apparently anything goes as long as you can prove you weren’t the one driving the vehicle. And once vehicles become blame-able, things are going to get very strange out on the roads. My advice – stay away from all interstates, state highways, county roads, city streets, cul-de-sacs, alleyways, driveways and cart paths for the next twenty years, until all this autonomous locomotion business gets sorted out! That’s what I’m going to do, and I suggest you do it too!”

I usually don’t take B.S.O.R.’s advice, and I’m not sure that it’s even possible to live in America in 2013 without going near roads. And surely there would be safety hazards to going cross-country all the time. Ticks, for one. Poison ivy too. Not to mention the drones overhead – another kind of autonomous vehicle.

Still, it does make me wonder what sort of life one could lead if the goal was to stay clear of all traffic.

Where is your favorite off-road area?