Driverless Cars: More GDP, Less Deaths, More Leisure?

One thing I have been thinking about lately is driverless cars. True, it does sound like something out of the future but I don’t think these cars are too far away. Google a couple of months ago made news with its driverless car. The car drove 1,000 miles without any human intervention and 140,000 miles with occasional human intervention. The technology will continue to improve and allow cars to go even more miles without humans. Driverless cars do pose some interesting questions though.

In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey estimated that Americans spent more than 100 hours a year commuting to work. If people instead of driving could be doing something work related or thinking without having to worry about driving they could be more productive. If millions of people are able to do this then it could easily add a couple of billion dollars to GDP since people could become more efficient. If cars were able to drive themselves and people had a long commute and the car was able to take people to their destination people could sleep an extra hour or so and not have to worry about driving. This brings me to my next point. Driverless cars would also reduce the number of cars theoretically to zero. Around 40,000 people are killed each year in car accidents and in 2005 there were nearly 6.4 million auto accidents per year. The economic cost to America in 2000 was around $230 billion. People could go out as late as they wanted to party since they would have a designated car for them. Another point about driverless cars is that people would no longer need insurance which would be like a tax cut for everyone. Cars could also become more fuel efficient if they were able to drive themselves because the cars could figure out from traffic congestion who was driving and what paths to take. Sometimes drivers drive at speeds that are fuel inefficient if cars drive at a speed that optimizes fuel efficiency this could be beneficial as well.

While these are all positives I am somewhat skeptical of how long this will take. Driverless could be here in 10 years, 20 years, or even 30 years. Technology will continue to improve and get cheaper. The first cars might be $80,000 and only the rich will be able to afford them. Highways might have to set up sensors or signals to help cars get around and this could have problems and cost a lot of money. Although, they can claim it really is the information superhighway. Plus, people who really enjoy driving cars (Jay Leno) will not like this. I also think people won’t trust a computer driving them from place to place. However, this is odd when most planes run on auto-pilot. The first cars won’t be perfect and might lead to some accidents but they will improve over time. Police officers wouldn’t have to arrest people for under the influence, give people tickets for not obeying the law, or have to pull people over. This would free up a lot of police resources. Let’s review. Driverless cars have the potential to save thousands of lives, prevent millions from getting in accidents, increase GDP and increase leisure/sleep time, increase fuel efficiency, decrease traffic congestion, get rid of car insurance, and most likely decrease crime. Although this is assuming the driverless cars are actually safe and courts rule that they are legal to operate. Only time will tell what the future holds.