[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

There was an old thread a while back about the Google project, but I couldn't find it, sorry if Fata.


Self-Drive cars are now an inevitability. Some experts are suggesting even in the next four to five years. I got my head spinning with all of the possible impacts this will have on our day to day lives. Some things are obvious, but with every revolutionary technology, some impacts are only predicted by really intelligent people. Are you one? How will this impact the future?

A) How many lives will be saved? How many serious injuries prevented? Is this bigger than most medical breakthroughs of the last number of decades?

B) How will this impact transportation costs? Will they decrease? If so, by any significant amount, energy prices will surely increase as transportation is used more, wouldn't they?

C) What will happen with insurance companies? Obviously they will still be there, but their roles will likely be largely decreased as less claims are made. I don't know enough about the insurance industry to know how that impacts profits, but costs will go down for sure.

D) How would it be regulated? The common comment is people are excited they can still take their car home if drunk, but wouldn't it still be mandatory to be sober in case of computer failure and you have to drive? Same goes with taxi drivers and truckers: wouldn't the need still exist for an operator? Wouldn't seat belts still be necessary eliminating my dream of comfy naps on the way to a destination?

E) Does it really impact your commute? With car pooling and sharing vehicles, most people are used to being a passenger anyways. All this does is effectively make more passengers as far as I can tell.
F) How does this impact car design? As less time is spent driving, how does the car change to suit the change in major activities of the "driver's" seat? Less focusing on instruments on the dash? Do we see larger larger screens for movie viewing in the front?

G) Purchasing behaviors. Would co-op buying be more preferable? If a co-op owned a fleet of self drive cars, wouldn't it be cheaper and then you just "call" the car when you need it instead of owning your own?

Any other impacts?

Self driving cars exist today, and are legal in at least three states: Nevada, Florida, and California.