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I think what bothers urbanists the most about self-driving cars isn't the fuel efficiency versus public transit. It's that they perpetuate the isolationism that's deeply embedded in American culture.

My parents grew up in Bangladesh, my mom in a fairly large city and my dad in a village. When they moved to the suburbs of D.C., the biggest culture shock they encountered was the intense isolation of American suburban life. Even in rural Bangladesh, you'll encounter dozens of people in a typical day. But in the U.S., you have to go out of your way (i.e. drive) to see other people. You can go days without seeing anyone outside your immediate family unit.

Self-driving cars address certain problems with a car-based society, like congestion and safety, but they perpetuate the model of driving around in little steel bubbles where we don't interact with or even see other people. That's the biggest difference between a car-based lifestyle and a transit-based lifestyle.

That's true, but you get the same isolation with public transport - people do not chat on the London Underground, or on the commuter trains.

I don't think rayner is talking specifically about social interaction when transporting... It's the isolationism inherent in everyone living in giant spaced-out castles of their own, with zero walkability and next to zero common shared public spaces that you find in denser areas.

And I totally agree - I think western suburban individualism/isolationism is a terrible idea, and horribly corrosive to peoples long term happiness and health.

I agree about the importance of walkability and public space. On reflection, it is possible that self-driving cars (and their ability to go perfectly from point to point) could make walkability economically redundant, which would be very damaging, as you say, to health and happiness.

And yet people choose it, overwhelmingly, whenever they have the option.

You're certainly free to choose a high-density lifestyle for yourself if you prefer it.

Very little of our evolutionary history occured in high-density urban environments, so it seems extremely far-fetched (bordering on ridiculous) that it would somehow be "healthier" from a psychological perspective.

Very little of our evolutionary history occurred with easy access to antibiotics, so it seems extremely far-fetched (bordering on ridiculous) that it would somehow be "healthier" from a biological perspective.

Oh wait.

That doesn't sound right at all does it?

"That doesn't sound right at all does it?"

No, it doesn't, but you're shifting the burden of proof. Antibiotics have been demonstrated to improve health. Someone who claims that some new stuff called an "antibiotic" improves health is expected to prove it, just as the burden of proof falls on the OP here to show that the "new stuff" of living in a city is actually healthier.

Urban life brings stress, high crime, bad education, pollution, traffic accidents, and many other factors that demonstrably either reduce the quality of life or endanger it outright. It's fun to live in the city if you're a young single, but not particularly "healthy". It's not at all good for children.

If you have some evidence that urban life is actually "healthy" in a psychological sense, let's see it. Do you have any?

I will note that until quite recently (maybe the last century) cities actually exhibited negative internal population growth. They didn't even replace their own populations internally...people died faster than they were being born. The only thing that kept the pestilential cities from being completely depopulated was a constant influx of population from the countryside.

Those people came there for jobs (i.e., survival). Now we don't have to do that, and the population is flowing the other way.

I think there's a very different psychological effect to just having other people around and being able to see faces than being in a steel box by yourself.

My personal experience is that it is worse: being surrounded by people just highlights the feelings of being alone.

>Driverless cars will enable more productive use of the commute time.

This is the main reason I am interested. I love taking the train to work because I can pull out a book, or my iPad. The experience is 100 times better than the stress of traffic.

So so true! Public transportation should be one of the infrastructure areas that the government need to support so that it is readily available and accessible, quick and frequent, clean and safe, and friendly to all family structures. Even if it is a loss making venture, the government needs to get behind it, just like the effort for the national defense program.

I'd rather take mass transit than drive through traffic. But in Seattle, taking the bus will take twice as long as driving. Some sort of rail system would be vastly superior.

The tube system in London, for example, is so quick and convenient I can't see the point of having a car there.

Add to the list:

* alleviates parking issues because the car can be told to go park somewhere 1) less congested and 2) less expensive.

One of the problems in cities is the complete lack of temporary parking being consumed by all-day workers, especially those with handicap placards who are not handicapped. 95% of the time I see someone getting out of a car and hanging up the placard they are not disabled (ie, not in a wheelchair or seem to have any handicap at all).

The lack of parking around businesses is a huge problem. Around my office, where there are lots of restaurants and other businesses, most of the parking is taken all day by handicap placard using commuters. This means there are fewer parking spaces for people to park and shop. That decreases sales in the shops in this area. Bad for everyone.

Basically, I won't even shop in areas of restricted parking availability. It's not worth the 30+ minutes of hunting for parking.

The increased traffic load can be mitigated by smart routing of cars through multiple paths.

Plus they could be connected to each other to effectively tailgate each other. The first car can tell the following cars to break at the same time.

Cars in congested areas can notify others coming up to lower their speed to ease congestion.

> Driverless cars means safer cars.

Where's the evidence for this?

perhaps if everyone on the road was in a driverless car, and they all communicated and prevented crashes. But that's not going to happen.

"perhaps if everyone on the road was in a driverless car, and they all communicated and prevented crashes. But that's not going to happen."

I hear this sentiment a lot. Having a higher percentage of cars following safe practices is safer even if those are cars aren't perfect and even if 100% of the cars aren't automated.

Can you tell me the logic (I've seen it many times in posts) that there won't be any safety benefits until all cars are automated (or until there aren't any manual drivers?).

I disagree that the benefit will be that discrete.

The trouble is that even if driverless cars are overall vastly safer, in today's litigious environment it just takes one fatal crash to derail (!) the whole concept when the car maker is sued out of existence. Whereas suing individual drivers doesn't take down the whole system.

I see this argument a lot, and it seems to beg the question to assume that there is such a "litigious environment."

Why are Google and other companies trying to develop this technology if all it takes is a single fatal crash, and therefore a single lawsuit? It should be in their rational self-interest to avoid any contact with this technology. It would be lighting on money on fire.

This is not the strongest example, but automobile companies have ignored fatality inducing problems, yet the practice didn't end their business. There is likely enough profit in the pursuit to deal with such issues. These lawsuits are slow-moving enough that there would be room to maneuver.

The greatest threat, in my opinion, is over-reacting politicians passing laws due to a shock in public opinion on the safety of the cars. The shock could be legitimate, due to reckless implementation, or just due to an unpreventable accident.

I trot out the power generation industry as an example. People sue nuke plants out of existence, despite them being far less damaging than coal - in both lives and environmental destruction.

There's also the vaccine industry. Some vaccinations result in severe adverse reactions in a handful of people. But the public health benefit is so vast that the government has stepped in to shield vaccine makers from the lawsuits.

As far as I know, nuclear power and the disposal of nuclear waste is more of a NIMBY problem than a problem of excess punitive damages or other alleged problems with lawsuits. This could also be an example of public shock putting pressure on politicians and public utilities to shy away from nuclear power.

The vaccine point suggests to me that it's not so black and white about if self-driving cars are doomed. If the public safety benefit of self-driving cars becomes so great, then maybe the government will be pressured to ensure they're here to stay. I think there will definitely need to be changes in the law to accommodate this tech, but it's not impossible.

Hope you have some compelling evidence at hand when you sue an entity that has a complete record of the incident.

In any case, I expect the incipient googlecars will have capacitive sensors on the steering wheel, requiring that your fingerprints are on the controls.

Lightning speed reflexes, inhuman car handling skills and inability to be distracted or get intoxicated go a long way.

software bugs, ability to be hacked, snooped upon by NSA, also go along way.

I'll take my chances thanks. Road deaths have been falling for years, despite the number of cars rising. More people die from accidental falls.

As a software developer, there's no way in hell I'd trust a car driven by software.

You're being snooped already. Chances are your automotive systems are keeping logs, and your cell phone regularly broadcasts your location. That cat long ago left the bag.

Then I'm sorry to tell you that new cars are already run by software, even though the input devices have not changed. Your car software can start the engine, disable the brakes, steer and so on. The cars on our roads already can be and have been hacked. Still, software glitches make up very little of the accidents that we see.

Software glitches can be tested and fixed. Human errors cannot.

Also, as a cheeky sidenote, do you also refuse to use driverless trains, driverless elevators, driverless escalators and driverless theme park rides? :)

> software bugs, ability to be hacked, snooped upon by NSA, also go along way.

You're already trusting a car driven by software that could conceivably "be hacked" to hurt you. Algorithms already control things like antilock brakes, shifting, adjusting the suspension and deciding when to deploy the airbags. And assuming you have a cellphone, the NSA is already tracking your every move.

> More people die from accidental falls.

Source? The CDC appears to disagree with you. (my source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm )

Yes, the first driverless cars will have all sorts of blind spots, but they will gradually get better whereas human drivers won't. Software-based drivers can learn from accidents and near-accidents that almost any other software-based driver anywhere has had, whereas human drivers are largely limited to learning from their own vastly smaller range of experience. As a software developer you should be able to predict the eventual outcome: programs will eventually in most circumstances beat even the best human drivers just as they now beat even the best human chess players.

Here are the functions of a modern car which you control manually: - the steering wheel

And even that is stretching the facts.

The Infiniti Q50 is steer-by-wire, too (the first, but won't be the last).

That's nonsense and you know it.

I ride a motorcycle. Every. Single. Time. I go for a ride, I am forced to contend with somebody in a cage making a dangerous move due to either inattention or carelessness. Worse, even conscientious drivers can completely fail to see a motorcycle (or a bicycle or a kid) due to the way the brain processes vision. When you contend with this on a daily basis, you realize how valuable it would be to have somebody driving who is always paying attention and doesn't have vision holes.

Yes, bugs are a real possibility, but compare the number of miles Google has driven and the number of accidents they've had with the general public, and it compares unbelievably well, especially for such a new technology.

Finally, the NSA doesn't need your car to track you. Between your phone, your license plate and your face, you would have a hard time going off grid.

Funny. Whenever I see a motorcycle, it's being driven recklessly and dangerously. So from my point of view, if you want to make roads safer, get rid of motorcycles first.

That's called confirmation bias and is a horrible way to build policy. I would, however, fully support regulations that required more education and smaller bikes for new riders. Even solo-riding age limits (can't ride alone until you have son much experience and age) could be useful. Squidly behavior (stunting and the like) should not be tolerated (more closed circuit roads would help, as it did with drag racing).

However, regardless of how bad somebody is riding, when something goes wrong, the rider always loses. Also, something that may seem "dangerous and aggressive" to you may be the best way for a rider to get out of a dangerous situation. I use the acceleration and maneuverability of my bike to escape e.g. being boxed in by large trucks on the freeway. I'm just taking advantage of the escape hatch before something goes catastrophically wrong.

I have seen a few crashes involving motorcycles not paying attention or taking unreasonable risks. Overtaking on blind bends etc. I haven't seen anywhere near the same number of crashes involving cars.

Is that confirmation bias as well?

Some of the largest causes of accidents to my knowedge are all due to human error (ie drunk driving, texting while driving, speeding, blind spots, etc). This is all something that an automated system will eliminate entirely. For every one of these unsafe drivers you replace with an automated driver, you make the road safer.

(that said, I don't think it makes the car itself physically safer, that is up to the manufacturer)

a driverless car is called a bus...

A bus will drive you on a fixed itinerary...