So, yesterday, we spoke about the one (of the two) place driverless vehicles make a great deal of sense (and the only place where the practice prevails today). Today, instead of talking about agriculture (where these autonomous vehicles are widespread) or trucking (where they are making inroads), we are going to center our discussions about self-driving cars.

All those people who theorize who self-driving cars make sense don’t really consider what or how these devices are going to change our world. And, that means for the better or for the worse.

Sure, it is easy to romanticize how driverless vehicles will make my commuting to Citizen’s Bank park easier. I will get into my car, relax, and be transported to the stadium relaxed. But, if autonomous vehicles (AV) really progress (which means way beyond their use on limited access highways), these vehicles will be able to take us anywhere we want to go.  (Of course, my trip could end up as tragically as that driver in Florida, whose driverless car filed to react to the tractor trailer’s turn- and ended up going under the trailer [after the top half of the car was sheared away].)

We’ll press a button (hopefully not one implanted in our wrists) and an AV will miraculously appear. But, it’s also possible (this is what GM is considering), the car may have two or three other folks wanting to go to a place near our destination. (This latter idea reminds me why I never was a fan of “monit” – group taxis- in Israel. Or, it’s younger cousin- the SuperShuttle here in the States. Because, invariably, my stop is the last one, making my trip hours long instead of a quick exploit.)

But, the reason why GM is considering this last concept is because our cars only are driven about 5% of the time.  Which, of course,  means we waste lots of money owning vehicles. If we share the vehicles, the car has a higher utilization rate and our per minute ownership cost drops dramatically.

Now comes the other rub. If we rely on such vehicles, we are going to be tempted to move further away from our jobs. Commuting longer distances. Because we won’t have to maneuver the vehicles among the zillions of zany drivers that raise our blood pressure every day.

The AV will be designed to help us continue to work- or to relax during our travels. And, with shared vehicles, there will be fewer of these cars on the road. (MIT experts expect that we will either get to work lickety split or traveling further distances with the same commuting time we experience now.)

And, despite the fact that millennials are currently living in cities, 2/3 of them would prefer to live in the suburbs. And, millennials with kids in school (and those kids are under the age of 6 right now) are more likely to live outside the urban environment than the older generations that had kids.

All this means big headaches for urban planners and zoning administrators. Because those livable cities they’ve been designing may be devoid of population when these AV’s prevail in the marketplace.

Hmm.  The unintended circumstances of design….

And, now, on a completely different note.  These shootings by police of Blacks; the terrorist attack killing five police in Dallas.  We have too many guns.  And, despite the claims that having a gun makes one safer, we see that it really means we just kill the other.  After all, the police are trained to use guns- way more than Joe SixPack- and all they know to do is shoot first in a panicky situation.   It’s time to cut back on these explosive situations.

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