729 More on the Self-Driving Vehicle Disruption
This week in the Herald two issues
converged: First Jacob Saulwick wrote about safety on our roads, today the
editorial asks, “what will traffic be like, with another 2.1m people in the
city?” In both instances no mention that the most disruptive revolution of our
time will change the world: Electric Autonomous Cars will be here within 10
years. Watch Tony Seba's video “The Self-Driving Vehicle Disruption”.
I've blogged about this issue before, blog 710.
Self driving Electric Vehicles (EVs) will take stress and danger out of driving. No more speeding or falling asleep at the wheel. Families, disabled grandma and Blind Freddie will travel in comfort and safety; traffic jams and the resultant stress will be memory only.
The greatest change will be for professionals. The tyranny of distance will be gone: since the car will be a mobile office, where they work on the computer & the phone, their work-day will begin at 9:00am - when they get into the car. It doesn’t matter if they arrive at work at 10:00 or 11:00; thus it won’t matter how far from the office they live, or indeed how many more people live on the periphery of Sydney.
I have to say, myself, I am amazed just how little attention this eminent Self-Driving Vehicle Disruption revolution is getting in the media and from our politicians. The issue should be part of any discussion about traffic, roads, population density, expansion of suburbs, growth in Sydney and our cities generally; and our relationship with cars, car-ownership and the future of doomed Holden (blog 719).
(As an aside, the editorial asks another question:
How should communities decide, for instance, that some quarter-acre blocks are worth preserving, and some should be replaced by townhouses? Are four storeys OK but five not?
This is a no-brainer ... five storey houses require lifts, to walk up three or four sets of stairs reduces the prevalence of obesity.)