A student's driverless car hit a police van during a demo in Islamabad

A student’s self-driving demo in Islamabad ended with the car against the side of a police van, and the police thanked him for trying.

What the clip shows

The video went viral over the weekend. Journalist Muhammad Aalijah rides in the passenger seat of a small hatchback with nobody at the wheel, filming a “driverless” car built by a third-semester computer engineering student from COMSATS University, Abbottabad. The car is steered remotely over an internet link. A police vehicle comes into view at D-Chowk, the car turns sharply toward it, Aalijah grabs the handbrake, and the two collide anyway. Dawn’s first report quoted a “technical fault” caused by an internet disruption.

The honest version

By September 1 the student had given The Express Tribune a plainer explanation. When he got ready to show the vehicle, “rather than the right key getting pressed, the left key got pressed.” Left instead of right, straight into the side of the police car.

Islamabad Police SP City Zone Ayaz Hussain said the inquiry “found no evidence of any commission of an offence,” called it a genuine mistake during testing, and added: “This is the future of Pakistan, these are the youth of the country.”

What it says about hobby autonomy

Strip away the memes and the incident is a fair picture of where amateur autonomy stands: a remote link, a keyboard, no fail-safe that stops the car when the operator fumbles, and a demo run on a public road with a passenger inside. The police response is the unusual part. Most cities would have started with a fine, and the difference says as much about how the country wants to treat its young engineers as it does about the car.