I hope new taxes don't happen. That would set back the move to driverless cars...every year we don't make the switch is a year in which tens of thousands of people die in car accidents that didn't have to happen. I suspect this is one of those areas where we're only thinking of the negative consequences, and not the positives.
What if you no longer need highway patrol officers to enforce speed limits and traffic laws? Or maybe you need a tenth as many on the road?
What if the number of times emergency responders are needed dropped precipitously because of fewer accidents? Emergency room visits are the only socialized medicine in the US (and horribly inefficient socialized medicine at that), so reducing them will have a huge impact on road-related expenditures borne by all of us.
What if we can begin to phase out signage and signals because the cars know where we're going and know when to stop and start? It will be decades before all cars are self-driving, but roads and lanes could be designated self-driving only, and those lanes could be free of extraneous signals and signs.
What if we can reduce number of miles traveled by optimizing routes, thus reducing damage to roads (subtly, but for big trucks, the differences could add up faster)?
Taxing self-driving vehicles more would be an impediment to a great good, so I hope that doesn't happen.
What if you no longer need highway patrol officers to enforce speed limits and traffic laws? Or maybe you need a tenth as many on the road?
What if the number of times emergency responders are needed dropped precipitously because of fewer accidents? Emergency room visits are the only socialized medicine in the US (and horribly inefficient socialized medicine at that), so reducing them will have a huge impact on road-related expenditures borne by all of us.
What if we can begin to phase out signage and signals because the cars know where we're going and know when to stop and start? It will be decades before all cars are self-driving, but roads and lanes could be designated self-driving only, and those lanes could be free of extraneous signals and signs.
What if we can reduce number of miles traveled by optimizing routes, thus reducing damage to roads (subtly, but for big trucks, the differences could add up faster)?
Taxing self-driving vehicles more would be an impediment to a great good, so I hope that doesn't happen.