Everyone's missing that drones (flying cars) might take off too at roughly the same time. The challenge of making driverless cars completely safe (intelligent sensing and control) is also the challenge for flying cars. Flying cars would beat out road cars and so the reenvisioning of society is greater than what people like Brad Templeton have done. With flying cars, all investments in roads become useless and huge swathes of land become inhabitable. Real estate prices should consequently plummet and a worldwide financial panic occurs (this can all happen within 5 years). However, this will be a good thing since it will clean the current mess of unproductive activity that is land owning and leasing.

What the mainstream media also aren't realizing is that the technology for driverless cars is also the same technology that automates away most factory/farming/mining/retail/distribution jobs. The effect in the west might not be so large, but in the rest of the world it could be devastating, leading to riots and civil wars.