- About 5.5 million motor vehicle accidents occurred in 2009 in the U.S., involving 9.5 million vehicles. These accidents killed 33,808 people and injured more than 2.2 million others, 240,000 of whom had to be hospitalized.
Adding up all costs related to accidents—including medical costs, property damage, loss of productivity, legal costs, travel delays and pain and lost quality of life—the American Automobile Association studied crash data in the 99 largest U.S. urban areas and estimated the total costs to be $299.5 billion. Adjusting those numbers to cover the entire country suggests annual costs of about $450 billion.
Now take 90% off these numbers.
I couldn't agree more. Driverless cars are going to change our society in ways we don't even understand yet, just as cars themselves started to 100 years ago. I haven't been this excited about a technological innovation in a long time.
Hi all, Steven Clausnitzer of hubski suggested that I drop in on your discussion of my Forbes article. Thanks for your comments. I address a number of the issues raised in two subsequent articles on the business ripple effects and the adoption issues. Below are links, please take a look. I'd welcome any comments. Google's Trillion-Dollar Driverless Car -- Part 2: The Ripple Effects
http://onforb.es/14elavu Google's Trillion-Dollar Driverless Car -- Part 3: Sooner Than You Think
http://onforb.es/11eXZ0E Best Regards,
Chunka
I very much enjoyed reading all these things you said were likely to happen (I'm also tickled that the moment I thought of a possible outcome, your article went on to explain the same thought in detail!) So, now that we know what's likely, tell us, what are you most hopeful for? (I for one am hoping a lot of these reclaimed parking lots can be turned into parks and gardens, and help some cities with the "hot spot" effect.)
Thanks very much for taking the time to reach out to us. Inre: your second article, which is mostly about the opportunity cost of driverless cars (lost revenue, etc.), I would posit that most of the revenue will be lost in industries that benefit from a negative. If that's the reductive-economy price we pay for a technological gain, so be it.
A little overlooked in the series (although it hasn't been completed yet, so it's a little speculative) is the affect that altering the dominant mode of transportation will have on the way we live, beyond the way we move around. Eliminating the need for parking, etc., greatly impacts the density of residential and commerce, potentially increasing other forms of transportation as well. Denser cities also lend themselves better to public transit as well, which could possibly benefit or suffer as a result, depending on a number of things. I'll have to look into the affect that self-driving cars have on suburbs, where our density of living is defined by our want for space, which was afforded by the advent of the automobile. Self-driving cars probably make living in a suburb easier, they just likely increase the need of vehicles as well as the time required for them. Decreasing travel times could even cause users to want to live farther out, although it's hard to speculate and would depend a lot on pricing schemes and what not. Exciting time though - I'm hopeful I'll see this in my lifetime.
Looks like the author addresses some of this in the sequels: http://hubski.com/pub?id=66458
I'd like to see those unused parking lots converted into little park oases. A lot of cities could use more trees. Lord knows the earth could use a few more trees.
Good post. Everyone talks about the time-saving, the reduction of accidents, but no one has taken the urban planning angle seriously yet. Briefly mentioned in the article was the fact that we could program our cars to drop us off and then park in some remote location while we worked/ate/studied.
I think it will soon become automatic (you won't have to tell a car anything except "come get me" or "take me here"). Cars will become a service, and most people won't own one - only collectors and hobbyist drivers.
We have these already - they're called subways. People...Move closer to where you work, drive less, be happier. Technology will not save you.A driverless vehicle could theoretically be shared by multiple people
Ah yes. But you could bike to work. There just isn't any infrastructure for it (I'm assuming). I suppose that I'm reading this article as if the author thinks that driverless cars are a panacea for our modern lives when in reality it's just another symptom. Just like adding an extra lane to a highway won't decongest traffic, driverless cars won't alleviate our collective commuting headache. In fact, it would only be a continued investment into a troubled land use typology. I say troubled because I think of my family in Georgia, who live in houses literally beside each other, 500 feet away, and still drive to each others place for dinner. They would eat this technology up (among other things). I mean really, what kind of amazing lifestyle advancement do you think would be achieved by you being able to still sit down and buckle up, still enter the on ramp, and still stop for pedestrians, but all without having to magically pay attention to any of it? It's a double down on an already shitty deal and you can't polish a turd. But the car is supposed to be about freedom, and individuality right? So why does the article espouse the benefit of it being able to operate like a public bus. "A driverless vehicle could theoretically be shared by multiple people". Haven't HOV lanes already been proven to not decrease congestion by any significant amount? The article is also topped off with statistics about current driving conditions and I have to wonder how realistic it is to assume that all would be better off when a computer is behind the wheel. It says it could reduce the number of vehicles on the road by 90%!? That's laughable. Hey look, a driverless car, I want one! And considering safety, I just think about me, all proud of my sweet new driverless vehicle, being on the road with the antiquated human operated vehicle majority - the most unpredictable and terrifying thing on the road- and thinking "How well could my machine react to the other lane's asleep at the wheel Honda? The reason Google had drivers that trusted their cars was because they were getting paid to. There will never be a perfect system. There will be bugs and malfunctions and because multiple cars are running on the same timing, there might be fewer accidents, but the ones that happen will be bigger. I sound pretty down of the car here, but I really do love cars a lot. I LOVE driving, when I can. It just sounds like a 3d TV kind of thing to me.
Hmm. We're at polar opposites on this. I don't see how driverless cars could fail to be a panacea. You say they won't alleviate our commuting headache. Somewhere down the line, why on earth not? The article gives a handful of valid reasons why they easily could, and speaking from personal experience I could add a few more. More time, pure and simple. You keep saying that driverless cars will compound the evil that cars apparently already are. I don't get why. As far as the stats go, even if you assumed they were wildly optimistic and cut them in half, you'd still be talking the most significant change in transportation since the highway system was built.I mean really, what kind of amazing lifestyle advancement do you think would be achieved by you being able to still sit down and buckle up,*still* enter the on ramp, and still stop for pedestrians, but all without having to magically pay attention to any of it?
Not to digress, but that reminds me of a funny David Cross bit about electric scissors. Question: Do you drive often? Do you spend a lot of time in traffic where you live?More time, pure and simple.
You keep saying that driverless cars will compound the evil that cars apparently already are. I don't get why.
According to Bill Ford, driverless cars are the answer but then, I think he may be just a bit biased. Still, it's an interesting TED talk.
So he says "I'm driving on 94 and my car alerts me that there is traffic ahead and starts calculating a different route." Of course if all the cars were talking to each other, this would never happen because they wouldn't create the traffic in the first place.
HOV lanes are distinct from driverless care sharing, in my opinion. HOV lanes are separated from the rest of the highway, representing an allocation towards shared driving - whether or not they increase throughput depends on whether or not enough vehicles with extra passengers use the HOV lane as compared to if the HOV lane was just part of the highway. Driverless car sharing is a scheme where drivers don't necessarily own their cars - that's kind of a gray area that I didn't think was discussed well in the article yet. Depending how they are priced and how the liability works, it's unclear to me if people own their own driverless cars, or if it's a service that you subscribe to and pay monthly or per trip - where vehicles show up as you need them, perhaps with additional passengers. This stuff is super interesting as a planning problem, and one that is likely to be addressed by computer scientists rather than transportation researchers, or perhaps together. Your post seems to imply that individuals would own driverless cars, in which case the 90% reduction would be silly, and I agree. However, the implication that they are making in the article (I think) has to do more with the case that driverless cars also shift our behavior for how we'd like to live - should we choose denser living and a rental system instead of ownership for cars, it is plausible (to me) that we could vastly reduce the number of cars. Living in Cambridge, MA, where parking spaces are severely limited, it's amazing how I almost never even get into a vehicle, minus a few zipcar trips (which I don't find worth it). However, there are cars parked on all the residential streets largely unused, and I think a city like Cambridge would benefit a lot from driverless cars, where trips are short, although increasing the availability of driverless cars could cause the number of trips to go up. But if it could decrease the number of cars and travel time (by reducing congestion), I think that a lot of parking space could be reclaimed for other uses. The effect that driverless cars will have on how we live is studied, but I think a lot of the impact depends on how driverless cars would be monetized, assuming everything works out from a technological perspective. I do think that driverless cars will prove to be much safer, statistically, than human operated vehicles, although I'm skeptical as to whether we will have cars platoon with minimal space between cars, at least initially. Regarding the impact on society, if it makes driving cheaper/more appealing, we may just continue with sprawl, although the reduction of congestion could make things "closer", whereas if it becomes more expensive, then we might accelerate the growth of the urban population and a rise in walking, bicycling, and public transit. Additionally, a significant hurdle is the inclusion of manned vehicles in the system - whether people who still drive their cars exist and how they interact with driverless cars. I don't imagine that legislation would ban users from driving their own cars, but that could decrease the productivity of driverless cars. Ultimately, it would have to be a culture shift where driving would no longer be desirable, but that seems very far off.
A taxi is a more more accurate analogy. A more efficient, faster, safer, cheaper taxi, ideally.
Easier said than done. Real estate in Australia is ridiculously costly and propped up by various factors like negative gearing and backwards laws. The only reasonable way for me to live anyway closer to the city in a home that I bought would be to move to Melbourne where Apartment blocks are being put up in greater frequency at much lower prices.People...Move closer to where you work, drive less, be happier. Technology will not save you.
I hear that. I will NEVER be able to buy a home anywhere close to where I live at the moment. At one point though, I learned that living in an area with all things accessible was a major priority in my life and paramount to my happiness. I don't even own a car, and I say that proudly. The driverless car just seems to me to be a flying car type fixation with no real systemic consequence. I think broader discussions about such things as societal values, city planning, and even negative gearing (had to look that up :) would ultimately prove to be more effective in declogging our roads. Change the culture and the rest will follow.
i agree that reestablishing societal values and overhauling urban design (on my phone - cant look up negative gearing :) ) would bring far wider benefits. However, creating self driving cars is easier, will bring some benefits and, importantly, is likely more profitable for thosr that will drive change.
Ah yes. The interstate highway industrial complex. We're pretty much in it aren't we? That's cool. Would be sweet to have more support and investment for the proposed high speed rail system. Imagine going 200 mph on the ground. Some day perhaps....
You will now have to name your first born thenewgreen
The second part of this article is also interesting: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2013/01/24/googles-tri...