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17 Ways Driverless Cars Could Change America
How Driverless Cars Could Reshape Cities
How Will Driverless Cars Affect Our Cities


The 3 links posted above highlight a lot of what to expect in a society with with autonomous cars. Keep in mind that they all assume driverless cars will kill the car culture and car ownership in general. Driverless cars will be similar to Uber & taxis.

They're a long read, but they're interesting. There's even a detailed description of how intersections will work without traffic lights or stop signs, including a computer generated model of a 12-lane, 4-way intersection. They make both good and bad points, some of which are included below (paraphrased):

Fewer Car Wrecks:
Speeding, DUI, & distracted driving, road rage, drowsiness, texting, etc make up the vast majority of wrecks which cost millions in damages and kill thousands each year. These, along with all other driver-error wrecks will be eliminated.

Cars Will Look Completely Different:
Since wrecks will be few & far between, safety features like seat belts, air bags, & reinforced walls will be less important or nonexistent. Drivers won't have to see or signal to other drivers, so windshields & wipers, turn signals, and headlights will be unnecessary. Steering wheels, gear shifts, speedometer, & forward-facing seats won't exist. The A/C, radio, & GPS won't need to be located in the front-center of the car any longer because they won't need to be within arm's reach of a driver.

Multi-Tasking & Multi-Functionality:
Specialty vehicles similar to RV's will be more common. Vehicles with fully-functioning work spaces/offices will be available. The vehicle a family uses to travel on vacation may essentially be a living room on wheels. Workout nuts could use a vehicle with a stationary bike on board.

Different Road Design & Rules:
No road signs. No stop lights. No lanes. Narrower highways because computers are more efficient than human drivers. Narrower streets because street parking will no longer exist. No universal speed limits. Each car will have its own speed limit based on its own capabilities within each and every driving condition it's facing at that exact time (weather conditions, road curvature, road surface, traffic congestion, etc).

Effects on Kids, Disabled, Heavily Medicated, Elderly, Non-English Speakers, & Intoxicated:
All of these groups can transport themselves in an automated car. The drinking age being lowered and legalization of drugs will be more plausible as well.

Increased Urban Sprawl & Telecommuting:
Commutes won't take as long. Sleeping & working during your commute will be normal in the future although it's dangerous & difficult (almost impossible) now. That means living further from work will be more practical. It could also result in shorter days at the office.

Buildings & Parking Will Be "Uncoupled":
We'll still need parking lots; we just won't need them anywhere near buildings. Everyone will be dropped off at their destination, and the car will then leave to go pick up someone else. No on-site parking required. As much as 1/3 of land in many cities is devoted to parking spots, and almost all of that land is immediately adjacent to buildings. This very valuable land will become parks, pedestrian zones, and commercial areas. Cities without onsite parking will be denser and more walkable. Shopping malls & big box stores that currently require far more parking area than actual floor space will be able to go into any area they're needed, not just where they fit. Low-value land far away from commercial & residential areas will be the new consolidated parking areas, which means more efficient use of land.

More Efficient Use of Time:
In addition to the hundreds of hours saved per person due to mulitasking during the commute (sleeping, working, exercising, etc), we won't have to drive kids around as much. We'll run very few errands because most stuff will be delivered by driverless cars. In business districts, 30% of time driving is currently spent looking for a parking spot which results in an estimated one billion miles driven per year.

Bigger Houses, Bigger Yards, More Affordability:
Current homes won't need their garage or drive ways. Narrower streets (due to reduced street parking) will mean bigger yards for new homes. Narrower streets and reduced parking requirements in newly built planned communities will result in more houses per acre than existing communities, which results in a larger supply of houses & more affordability. Existing homeowners will combat this drop in pricing by converting their garage to an extra room and their driveway to extra yard space. Long commutes being more practical will result in people moving out of town to where larger lots and houses are more economically feasible.

Revolutionizing Law Enforcement:
Greater access to GPS data will help law enforcement. (I don't know if this is good or bad).
Resources will be redeployed from traffic violations, drunk driving prosecution, and speed traps to more intentional crimes. Or perhaps police forces can be reduced. But police & emergency vehicles may still have to use human drivers or at least a way to override driverless cars so they can get through traffic easier/quicker.

Elimination of speed traps and traffic citations could hurt local communities, though, who depend on that for revenue. Traffic stops also tend to lead to arrests for more serious crimes such as felony warrants.

Vulnerability to Terrorism and Natural Disasters:
Cars aren't currently a target by terrorists because they can easily disperse and are separately controlled unlike subways and planes. But when driverless cars are controlled by the same satellite system, they suddenly become a high profile target. Additionally, a major earthquake or a hurricane like Katrina could knock out the entire transportation system when it's needed most.

Loss of Privacy:
The open road and a full tank of gas used to mean freedom and anonymity. But in a GPS tracked network of driverless cars, it will mean the exact opposite.

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I think within 10 years, they will be at least as common as electric & hybrid cars are today. By 2030, "normal" cars will be rare. Once kids who've always lived with driverless cars are able to purchase cars of their own (30 years from now), the age of "normal cars" will officially end.

Frankly, driverless cars will be superior to normal cars in every way, and the only people who will disagree will be old people like us. I think the smart phone analogy used earlier is a good example. While there will always be some old farts who refuse to give up their land-line and rolodex, 99.9999% of the population believe smart phones are superior.

I also agree with the poster who said driverless cars will replace Uber & taxis. Once driverless cars take over the marketplace, there will be no reason to own a car. Since we'll no longer drive, "car culture" will be a thing of the past. The looks of the car and how you look riding in it only matter because you're driving. Since you won't drive in the future, none of that will matter in the future, which means owning cars won't matter to people either.

I expect that we'll have several car services to subscribe to, and we'll pay a monthly bill to each service based on the time/miles we traveled and the types of vehicles we used. Cars, pickups, and vans will all have different rates.

I think ride sharing and carpooling will be much more common. If another person lives on the way to your destination and is headed somewhere else along the way, the computer can alert you and ask if you're willing to pick the person up. Perhaps you will receive a discount on your service as compensation. Of course, you'll have the option of declining. Maybe it will be a preference setting you can select before you ever even call for the car.

Companies may own their own driverless cars or have their own subscriptions for their employees who must drive for work. Perhaps a subscription (for commuting to & from work) would be a perk they could offer employees similar to how we get health insurance now.

Without car ownership, things like driveways, garages, parking lots, parking garages, Jiffy Lubes, gas stations, and neighborhood mechanic shops will be a thing of the past. That land will all be repurposed for other things like an extra room on the house, a bigger yard, parks, and other buildings.

Cars on average are actually used less than 4% of the time. Think about how much space is wasted by cars just sitting around not being driven. That's probably millions of acres of land just being wasted. That will now all be reclaimed for more useful things.

Intersections will also be a thing of the past. The computers & GPS devices on board each car will communicate with the other cars, and they'll navigate the intersection in coordinated fashion without stopping or barely even slowing down. Traffic will simply move through each other without bumping into each other in the exact same way schools of fish swim through each other without touching.

Most studies estimate that 4 times as many cars will fit on current highways once they're all automated because human inefficiency & having to guess what everyone else is doing will no longer be an issue. So the streets & highways will be narrower, and turn lanes will not need to exist.

Driverless cars will also save time for us all. We can work, sleep, shop online, surf the web, research stuff, do homework, and nearly anything else in the car. Redundant driving (driving for the sole purpose of transporting someone or something else) would no longer exist. In other words, your kids can take themselves to soccer practice, your groceries can be delivered to your house, and your blind grandmother can go to her doctor's appointment while you sit on the couch.

One of the down sides are that public transportation will lose its value. It will result in a MORE cars on the road per capita at any one time. But again, roads will be more efficient, so roads at their current size will be able to accommodate far more cars...so travel time may not be affected that much.

Lots of people will lose their jobs, too. Taxi drivers, neighborhood mechanics, valets, parking attendants, and car salesmen will cease to exist. But new industries will spring up to support driverless cars.

Over-commercialization of the riding experience will be impossible to overcome. I think advertisers will bombard riders with ads and commercials. Of course, for a fee, you can probably get rid of the ads in much the same way websites work today.

And for those of you who say it can't happen because GPS is inaccurate, you need to stop looking at the technology as it is now, and start looking at it as it will be soon. Of course it isn't perfect right now, but those glitches will be solved in due time.

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