I was considering building a drive by wire system several years ago. I rationalized that such a system would be useful for handicapped people (and some experiments were conducted years ago using derivatives of Lunar Rover technology). The simple fact is that I wanted one for myself.

I figured out how to build such a system. I was even going to use a simple voice recognition system to handle secondary systems like turning on the headlights. My plan was to buy one of those surplus Post Office mail Jeeps with a steering wheel on the right side so I could have a safety driver while perfecting the system. It would've worked, too.

Then I thought about the legal liability issues and dropped the idea like a hot rock. While building a limited production system with high quality standards is certainly possible, risking people's lives on a mission critical mass production system is a great way to spend a lot of time in courtrooms.

I'd love to see how Boeing developed their fly-by-wire system for the 777, knowing full well they're going to be sued to death the first time one of them goes down regardless of the reason. Think about their legal exposure - a 777 can carry over 300 people. If the average suit was for $3 million, their liability is almost a billion dollars on each plane they produce. Contrast that with a per plane profit of probably less than $10 million and I can't help but wonder how they developed the system with liability in mind.