Carmagedon

Surely you remember the cars of the 1960s; big, powerful, wasteful, and covered with fins. A lot of car fanciers consider that the heyday of automotive culture. It was also a decade of bloodbath, literally.

The same year that a man walked on the moon, the American automotive death rate peaked at over 26 deaths per 100,000 of population.

Things have improved slowly over time. The current rate is a shade over 10 deaths. In Canada, where we drive the exact same kinds of cars, the rate is 6.

In the States, people arm themselves to the teeth in an attempt to protect themselves from violence and crime, but don't give a thought to automotive safety. This is ass backwards, as they are twice as likely to be killed in a car as to be murdered.

How easy would it be to cut that automotive death rate even further? People could modify the way the drive, or start selecting vehicles that are safer, improve roads, or institute safety laws. All of these are a big, inconvenient bother.

There is something else about to happen that will do it automatically.

Self driving cars and trucks are about to take the road in commercial numbers. The first steps will be small, with laws requiring a “driver” to be seated by the controls as the car merrily goes on it's way. All the experts agree that such vehicles will be much safer than those driven by people. Less people will be injured or killed.

Are there other benefits? The mind boggles.

If fully self-driving cars become the norm, and the legal requirement for a “driver” goes away, think of the possibilities.

Ever been to Vegas? You stay in some fabulous resort, with your car parked way the hell over in some distant parking structure. That's a lot of walking back and forth, or your car could drop you by the door and go park itself. Use your smart phone to bring it back anytime. In your home town, the same thing will happen in the mall lot.

Why does every house have a big, ugly structure shoehorned into it called a garage? That could all be living space, and the cars could be stored a short drive away in some dedicated parking facility.

Time to take little Sally to her ballet class. Best load up all the other kids into the van and drive over to the dance school, dragging the others away from their home activities, along with at least one parent. You go in the van, burning a ton of gas. Perhaps instead it might be better to put Sally into a pint-sized self-driving car by herself. It takes her to dance, leaving the rest of the family at home, and burning less fuel.

One of the biggest shocks to everybody later in life is the day when they have to stop driving. With a self-driving car this need never happen. No need for the aged to be trapped in their homes with a car like that.

My wife and I like to go on big holidays, and prefer travelling by road. We don't hate driving, but it loses its luster after the first thousand kilometres or so. It would be much nicer to have the car do the driving.

Sometimes on these trips we experience big-city traffic jams. Self-driving cars would minimize these clogs. Unlike humans, they can accelerate in perfect sync with the car ahead of them, and precisely maintain a much closer cruising distance than is possible by a person. They have a virtually instantaneous reaction time. They don't need a two-second buffer, and would take up less than half as much highway as a conventional car. They are almost non-existent as traffic.

Such cars are possible now, and the first small steps are under way.

The only thing that can prevent it will be human irrationality. Funny that we can accept over 30 000 deaths per year at human hands in a country like the USA, but every single self-driving car death might be considered an unacceptable risk.