tandempower

Driverless cars have two potentially divergent effects on LCF, according to the article linked below, depending on who decides how they will be used. What is your opinion? Do you expect driverless cars to be a continuation of 'car 1.0,' as the article describes the current state of transportation culture that has developed around automobile use? Or do you expect it to usher in 'car 2.0,' where people begin walking and biking more, and using (driverless) cars to get around more sparingly?
Mods: I decided to go ahead and post this in LCF, since it seems of relevance to LCF, but feel free to move it to P&R if the subject matter is too political to maintain peace in this forum.

PdalPowr

Definitely help bring about car light at least.
Even if it isn't to help the enviroment car makers follow trends.
Electrics and hybrids are so common where I live no-one comments on them anymore.
Car makers will profit by our enviromental frugality.

cooker

This came up in earlier threads. Personally, I think that people will drive less with driverless cars, in that they will use them like cabs and will have to pay each time, so they will think twice about some trips.

If you have a car that you own, sitting in the driveway, it doesn't cost much to hop in it for a 2 or 3 block errand, as you have prepaid much of the ownership, insurance and other fixed costs, and all you are paying for that short trip is for a few nickels worth of gas.

However, if you had to book a driverless car, much like you book a cab and driver now, although a lot quicker and easier, still, each time you pay the fare, part of it goes to the gas and part to those fixed costs, so it will have a lot more bite.

So you might be more likely to walk or bike to the corner store, or walk the kids to school.

350htrr

Once AV take off, car light (will be the norm), meaning, people will start, to NOT actually own the car they are using... IMO, why.? because of cost, and regulations, not really because they want to be car free... BUT, they want to reduce the cost of getting around, which will happen once AV's get straightened out (meaning less accidents per AV vehicle's compared to human driven), and they start to be actually "safer" than human driven vehicles. I suspect it will actually be (in effect) started to be basically "mandated", meaning, licencing will be harder and harder to get, for personally driven vehicles... JMO

Stick69

I think the opposite will happen here. People will live where housing is cheaper and commute longer distances in driverless cars. They will be able to work or sleep in the car, show up to work at varied hours as needed for meetings. What has surprised me over the last decade is the number of face to face meetings and amount of flying to attend training is increasing instead of decreasing.

17000 people commute from Sacramento to the Bay Area to work and the number is increasing.

prathmann

It would certainly be that way for me. Quite a few of the shorter errand trips where I end up driving it's because I realize the car has just been sitting in the driveway for weeks and the battery may die if I don't drive it soon.

cooker

You might be right, but I hope not. They're still going to have to pay per mile for all that tech and fuel, and virtual meetings and virtual employment infrastructure will be much cheaper and much better technical quality than they even are now, so maybe the increase in face-to-face meetings and business travel you are seeing is just the last blip before a big decline.

Sullalto

A 30 mile commute doesn't eliminate itself because of driverless cars. People will just netflix in the car. Maybe traffic will be better(no accordion effect at lights, so more efficient stop&go and merging on a large scale).

Even in my mom's small town, she's two miles and a couple hundred feet uphill from the grocery store. She's never going to walk that.

It's a dead horse and a broken drum, but your average American city just isn't dense enough to allow most people to consider going car light or car free.

I-Like-To-Bike

Maybe not.
Your Uber Car Creates Congestion. Should You Pay a Fee to Ride?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/n...icing-nyc.html

cooker

Are there places she could walk?

Stick69

On a positive note, it is becoming easier to get groceries and sundry items delivered to our homes which could result in fewer trips. This could make it easier to live in both urban and rural areas with poor grocery availability.

PdalPowr

I agree with the concept but wonder how much control over quality I give up by letting a stranger pick my food.
If society holds true to form service would be excellent at first to get the utiliser used to the service then it is however much they can get away with without losing clients.

I know that sounds cinical but I am betting it is making you think right now.

wipekitty

On that note, they might also raise fees once people are used to the service. I just noticed that Amazon is now charging additional monthly fees for their Pantry and Fresh services - Pantry used to be free with a Prime membership.

FWIW, I was only looking at this because 10 miles RT with a trailer is much more fun when it's not below 0F. Usually I'm prepared, but people in my house have been doing some serious damage to my stock of supplies.

I-Like-To-Bike

Walmart free delivery for on-line shipments that total over $35 stopped being such a good deal after 6 months. I saw prices increase much higher than the physical store's price in that time period, where previously the on-line prices were identical or even lower.

PdalPowr

You have my respect for biking everday errands by trailer.
It takes commitment to do that.

Mobile 155

That is the market place in action. Once the competition has been eliminated the prices will increase. Human nature in action.

Just because we might have self driving cars why do we expect human nature to change much? People aren't willing to walk 4 to 8 feet to change a TV channel why walk to the store when you can summon a vehicle? The average American isn't walking that far now and for the last 48 years most people aren't commuting by bicycle either. But lets be honest a majority of people aren't driving their vehicles anywhere for maybe 8 hours each day. They go to work, park and go home and park. Yes they may be going out after they get home or on the way home but according to the government they aren't walking that much either. https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/r...ly_travel.html

As we get more people in the world there is no reason to believe those people will be any more willing to give us convenience than we as a nation are today. Oh sure it is good to feel like a light will come on and people will suddenly start to feel like flower children and start eating granola and singing around a campfire together. But in reality people do whatever is easiest for them. They don't walk if they can ride, at least most don't. Go to a mall sometime and see how many walk up the stairs, percentage wise, verses the escalator. There is also the possibility people will just have a private self driving car just because they can afford it.

I am not sure Self driving cars will change much of anything except maybe less accidents. I doubt if I would be making dinner reservations at a nice place in a future populated by self driving cars and walk in a freezing rain even half a mile if I could just call up a car to take me there. It would make no difference if I am driving or someone else or even a computer.

cooker

Has there been any backlash against Walmart charging more for delivered items?

jon c. 

I've heard that complaint throughout my adult life. Many people still did walk to the television when I was a child. But it occurs to me that it's become outmoded. You can't actually change the channel on the set itself on most televisions I've used in recent years.

Not that your overall point is incorrect, but it struck me as funny that this, like dialing the phone, has become an archaic phrase. With everything voice activated these days, it could be said that folks have now become too lazy to pick up a remote and press a button or two.

I-Like-To-Bike

How would I know? I can tell that I use it less though, since I have the option to buy at the store and carry it home.

Mobile 155

My son just got a new Truck and while the radio is less than three feet away the radio entertainment center can be voice activated. Both for the radio, MP3 player and built in cell phone. You don't need to use the mirror to back up, it is on the screen in front of you.

cooker

The rearview camera is definitely a safety improvement in one way, because you can see a child or a post that the mirror may not show you, but I wonder if it will make people less likely to watch for side traffic (or maybe car manufacturers will add side views to the display). I dislike touchscreen media controls, because older manual dials and buttons could be operated without looking away from the road.

It remains to be seen whether voice activated controls will improve safety. They may not take your eyes off the road but they may distract your brain from the road, as you visualize what station or disk or whatever you want to play, or whatever person you are trying to contact or talk to.

Mobile 155

All may be a valid point. But the other point I was making is people are willing to pay to make things easier on "themselves". Even if it is just because they can afford it. It can be called a safety improvement or simply something easier, faster, more modern or 25 percent more for the same money.

Where we differ is I don't see any reason to believe there will be fewer cars on the road simply because they are self driving any more than there were when they developed automatic transmissions. To me they would make mass transit redundant. Why wait for a preset schedule when you can just catch a car to go to your destination anytime day or night? Just as fast as having your own car and no need to wait till others get on or off a bus. Why walk to a bus stop when the car comes to you? I can't say how many might be privately owned, might be fewer, but if it is easier to catch a ride than it is now I cannot see the trips decreasing. Just the big corporations will have more of the cars on the road making as many trips as they can to bring in as much profit as they can.

Like many here I might not have a crystal ball but I don't see corporations changing motives or methods much and I don't see people becoming less concerned for what makes life easier for them personally just because cars can drive themselves. They didn't start walking up flights of stairs because elevators lost their operators. If anything people seem to care less about what is good for other people than at any other time I have lived through.

But with all of that we both have time to see what direction things take. I just think the odds are they won't change that much.

Sullalto

A mile to some restaurants and a corner store with an extremely limited selection of sundries at 2-5x the markup compared to the grocery store, and milk that expires in two days? Sure.

Rollfast

That's not an expiration date, it's a use by date, that's marketing.


(You eat cheese and that's milk byproducts that sat in a vat for a long time and had a culture added to curdle it)...


My granddad was a dairy farmer.

Rollfast

I don't know either, I rode my bike to Albertsons. That's three miles away.