Two columnists clash over whether the steering wheel is a sensible safeguard or a dangerous fiction. The answer depends on which failure mode you fear most.

Regulators and operators are demanding steering wheels stay in autonomous vehicles. One side calls it a realistic safety verdict; the other calls it a policy choice that's killing people with delay.

Uber wants to turn its human drivers into a training ground for the robots that will replace them. The question isn't whether that transition is coming — it's who bears the cost of getting there.

One columnist says the steering wheel is a disciplined accountability checkpoint. The other says it is a mandate costing forty thousand lives a year. Both are partly right, and that is exactly the problem.

Regulators still insist a human hand stay near the wheel of every self-driving car. One columnist calls that prudent engineering; the other calls it a death sentence dressed up as policy.