As exciting as autonomous cars may be — vehicles that don’t require a human driver — there will be unintended consequences that should dampen even the most ardent fan’s feverish excitement.
What will happen to the expert navigators who ride shotgun on short jaunts and long road trips? The women (and men, I suppose) whose expert sense of direction is revealed only after the driver has spent a minimum of 20 minutes muttering and growling that the street/house/gas station/ restaurant is not where it is supposed to be.
It was thought they would become extinct once GPS mapping apps became ubiquitous on smart phones but they survived the great technological dawning when it became apparent that somehow only they had the correct GPS coordinates on their phone. Even though both driver and navigator had the same phone, the same app and the same directions, only the passenger’s directions were precise enough to get them where they wanted — had the driver only listened from the beginning.
With self-driving cars, however, the self-righteous and all-knowing navigator will have no one left to tell where to go and how. They will be left to stare quietly out the passenger window at the couples engaging in meaningful discussions about where they should have exited, how fast they are travelling and why are they together in the first place?
Crowded streets, jammed highways and never-ending work commutes are always reliable talking points for politicians and would-be problem solvers. Getting rid of gridlock and easing traffic congestion has always been a mainstay of local political platforms.
Ever since Fred Flinstone first put his feet to the ground in his 00 BC Concrete Cruiser, promises of less congestion have typically been good for a few thousand votes. But with cars driving themselves and the aggravation of being stuck behind a raised pickup being left to the 1s and 0s programmed to move people from A to B, will people even mind any more that they are wasting time in a slow-moving line? Or will passengers open one eye, see they’re still 40 minutes out from their workplace and go back to sleep, grateful for the opportunity to get a few more minutes sleep?
Without the hot button issue of traffic jams to push, candidates will have one less talking point to use as a means of persuading voters they are the best choice for office. And really, who wants that?
Of course, self driving cars would eliminate the need for parents to chauffer their children around from one function to another so maybe in the end the trade-off is worth it.
