from a Jeffrey Tucker column

Headline (from an opinion column in a newsletter I receive):

Your New Life of Driverless Cars

If you live in Northern California, you know this already. In a few years, driverless cars will be everywhere. You will likely use them if you travel to the city. If you live in a town of any substantial size, you or someone you know will likely use them.

 

The numbers on the increase where they are currently permitted are simply amazing. In less than a year, the Google company called Waymo has increased its weekly ride volume from 10,000 in August 2023 to more than 250,000 today. It has passed 10 million successful trips. These cars are everywhere on the streets of San Francisco. They are coming to many other cities including Austin, Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C..

 

There is competition with Uber and Tesla for the same.

As much as I use taxis in Seoul, I haven't been in a driverless car, so I have no idea whether such cars even exist in Seoul traffic.* I've long contended that Seoul would be a great—if dangerous—crucible in which to test the mettle of driverless cars. The chaotic nature of Seoul traffic means that any car designed to drive there would have to perform perfectly, right out of the gate: any accident would instantly create traffic snarls and other inconveniences.

The article continues:

Those who have taken them report relief from painful conversations with drivers and safety concerns that come with eccentrics behind the wheel. You can get work done and have conversations without distraction with a super-safe AI driver that gets you where you need to be without tailgating, risk-taking, or missed turns.

 

That this is our future seems absolutely certain to me. And the core reason is precisely the one that has long vexed this technology: safety.

 

As a young driver, I had the mentality of every boy that age. The road is mine. I will master this machine and drive as fast and far as I am able. I will never get into a crash. Those are for other people. I will weave in and out of traffic with my experience and destination as my only concern.

 

There was some point in my adulthood when I was on an interstate highway where the traffic speed was pushing 85 miles per hour. The cars were close to others’ bumpers. People were moving in and out of lanes quickly, accelerating and decelerating. Off-ramps and on-ramps were feeding cars into this frenzy every few miles.

 

At some point, I conceptualized the whole of it. And then I realized. This is utter madness. In a culture in which everyone obsesses over safety—terrified of playgrounds and disease and strangers—we are all happily engaged in the craziest imaginable experiment.

 

We were handed the keys to two-ton piles of steel on wheels to every comer after a short test, taken one time in a lifetime. We invite anyone to enter onto giant slabs of hardened tar and do whatever they want with only painted lines as guides. And these people accelerate as fast as they can get away with, and otherwise follow whatever rules they want, with the only enforcement mechanism being a police car that randomly appears to check on things.

 

The mystery is not that there are 6.1 million automobile crashes in the United States every year. The mystery is why there are not 61 million or more! That the roads are as safe as they are is a tribute to self-interest and the magic of self-organizing systems. Somehow people have managed to work it out and not be in a constant state of panic!

 

After realizing this, I could never go back. I became a super-safe driver, avoiding all packs of cars and staying in the least-used lanes, backing quickly away from any car that was moving erratically or otherwise in some kind of hurry. I never, ever, pick fights with drivers and never get angry no matter what happens. My one and only concern is to get home safely.

[ ... ]

Americans instead have done what we always do. Rather than reversing errors, we have innovated around them, creating new technologies and plans to fix the problems created by the old technologies and plans.

 

Sure, I’ll hail a robotaxi. But I would much rather have a passenger train system that is humane, efficient, functional, and safe. Once at the train stations, cars get us the rest of the way, just as they did in the 1930s.

 

Yes, I am aware that there is no going back. And maybe these new driving robots will help repair some damage. 

There's more, but the above is enough to make me wonder whether, someday, I might live in a Seoul where the traffic is orderly and not dominated by selfish opportunists (Koreans—who normally behave well around loved ones, friends, and coworkers—exhibit plenty of selfish, opportunistic behavior in public situations such as when subway or elevator doors open, and everyone shoves to get inside before the people leaving the transportation have a chance to get out; Koreans will also cut in line at Costco or gently bump your ass repeatedly with their shopping cart if you're in line with them, and all of this is the groundwork for how Koreans behave when they drive).

Of course, the price of such future orderliness will be a loss of freedom, so it's the classic freedom-versus-safety debate that we've been having for years.

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*Google AI says that, yes, Seoul has nighttime driverless services in the form of buses and taxis, many relying on the Kakao T app. These services run when the chaos is minimal, from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. I guess Seoul isn't quite ready for daytime service. Believe me, I understand why. The AI says the eventual goal is "30% adoption [of automated vehicles] by 2030."