Brave New Road

Spotted on Hwy 101 in July

Sam Shank, co-founder of the hotel referral service Hotel Tonight, is enthusiastic about driverless cars [bold added]:

This is a subject I’ve thought about deeply for the past 20 years. I believe it will have as much impact on the world as the switch from horse transport to automobiles.....

Here’s what I think will happen next: the initial use of drive-anywhere autonomous cars (I call them AutoCars) will be with companies like Uber or Lyft rather than individually owned....

Soon thereafter, as adoption skyrockets, cities will designate areas that are AutoCar-only. Lanes of highways will become AutoCar-exclusive, allowing for more density of driving and far higher speeds. Roughly 10 years from now we will see the End of Human Driving – a seminal moment of the first half of the 21st century.....

With the AutoCar, our urban landscape is set to change in massive and wonderful ways. Certain fixtures will become obsolete, like parking garages, road signs, street parking and traffic lights. For most people, garages will be as anachronistic as stables, and will be reclaimed for more productive uses like extra bedrooms, playrooms or exercise rooms.

Your humble observer sees great demand for the "AutoCar,"---particularly in his own family because of sad experience---but the rule against buying a car in its first model year applies in spades to the horseless-cum-driverless carriage. The problem isn't just the science; there are also complex legal and financial details to be addressed. And just when those issues look like they're settled, ever-more-powerful drone technology will make flying driverless cars a reality.

As for me, I'll be staying out of trouble indoors playing in my holodeck.