Driverless Cars Shrink Potential Organ Donor lists

[kickingandscreaming]

Self-Driving Cars Will Make Organ Shortages Even Worse

We need to prepare for that now.

By Ian Adams and Anne Hobson
A pilot model Uber self-driving car is displayed at the Uber Advanced Technologies Center on September 13, 2016 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
A pilot model Uber self-driving car on display on Sept. 13 in Pittsburgh.
Angelo Merendino/Getty Images

Much has been said about the ways we expect our oncoming fleet of driverless cars to change the way we live—remaking us all into passengers, rewiring our economy, retooling our views of ownership, and reshaping our cities and roads.
They will also change the way we die. As technology takes the wheel, road deaths due to driver error will begin to diminish. It’s a transformative advancement, but one that comes with consequences in an unexpected place: organ donation.

Barring a monumental medical breakthrough in the field of organ replication, we need a national solution for our donation
Since the first successful recorded kidney transplant in 1954, organ transplant centers have been facing critical shortages. Roughly 6,500 Americans die waiting for an organ transplant each year, and another 4,000 are removed from the waiting list because they are deemed too sick for a transplant. Since 1999, the waiting list has nearly doubled from 65,313 to more than 123,000. Liver and kidney disease kill more people than breast cancer or prostate cancer, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects the incidence of these chronic diseases to rise along with the need for more organs.

It’s morbid, but the truth is that due to limitations on who can contribute transplants, among the most reliable sources for healthy organs and tissues are the more than 35,000 people killed each year on American roads (a number that, after years of falling mortality rates, has recently been trending upward). Currently, 1 in 5 organ donations comes from the victim of a vehicular accident. That’s why departments of motor vehicles ask drivers whether they want to be donors.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/12/self_driving_cars_will_exacerbate_organ_shortages.html

[Charlie B53]

Wow!  1954,  I would have guessed it wasn't until at least the early 60's.

I don't think the Driver-less cars will become very widespread for quite a while yet.  Although it is inevitable that it will become very accepted that won't happen for a long time yet.  Too many control freaks like me that will refuse to acknowledge technology.  My cell phone is still just a flip phone.  None of that high-tech toys for me.

I have to admit as a 'Guy' we are stupid.  We tend to think we are immortal and do so may brainless things, risking our lives daily.  And many of us become Dawin-Award candidates.

Those contributions to transplant donor pool will continue as long as man-kind exists.

Have faith in man's stupidity.

[MooseMom]

I am hoping that the speed in the advances in organ replication will, at the very least, keep pace with that of driverless vehicles.

I don't think we'll ever see driverless motorcycles, though.

[Simon Dog]

My neph advised that moving to a state without a motorcycle helmet law would get me an organ a bit faster.

[Charlie B53]

As a very long time motorcycle rider I have to admit there are a number of younger potential organ donors that fail to exercise due caution riding.

You don't get as old and grey as I riding a motorcycle AND being stupid.

Although I also have to admit that I do have my times and manage to survive doing some totally stupid things, like sass the Wife.

[Michael Murphy]

It's not the old riders but the young new ones.  When I lived in a apartment my neighbor was a  Harley fanatic was in his 50's and a hell of a nice guy.
Some 20 year old just bought a crotch rocket and Charley went over and tried to tell him to be careful but he blew Charley off.  His gir friend came out got on the bike with him, and I suppose to impress her he really gunned it and smacked head on into a car turning into the parking lot.  Created a tangle of bodies and both were in the hospital for months.  As long as their are 18 to 20 year old males testosterone fueled stupidities will create a constant supply of body parts.
In  truth it is a miracle I survived those 4 years.

[coravh]

My neph advised that moving to a state without a motorcycle helmet law would get me an organ a bit faster.

Helmet laws of all sorts had a huge impact on the number of organs available.

Just as an aside, France has passed a Presumed Consent Law. Some people have jumped already and opted out, but I believe that the vast majority of people trust their health care system to save them if it's possible (and they have a pretty amazing health care system).