Look Ma, No Hands!

I have been obsessed lately thinking about the implications to our culture that driverless cars have had and, more importantly, will have in the future as adoption increases. It sounds like a small innovation - driverless cars. But it's wildly profound the more you think about it. Below I'll share my own views and then what some of my Ideasicle Experts had to say. They didn't disappoint.

Initial thoughts.

The term "driverless cars" is accurate, but doesn't come close to describing what really happens when cars don't need drivers.

Car interiors will change.

Car interiors will be redesigned so the seats all face each other like a mini living room vs all facing forward. Maybe they already are.

Travel time in a car isn't dead time.

Seats will convert into cots so people can program their distant destination at 10pm - say from Boston to Rochester - and sleep all the way there instead of burning most of the daytime driving themselves.

Similarly, commutes to work become sleeping time, reading time, eating time, or whatever time other than driving time. Further, if everyone has driverless cars, "traffic" will have a computerized, predictable flow. Which means the commute time to and from will never change. It will be 100% predictable. No more "traffic was terrible" excuses.

Nomadic living?

Could mean a boon to self-driving motor homes, meaning people could live a nomadic life, moving from one town to the next, and never owning homes with foundations. Which could create a whole new cottage industry of much fancier camper parks for these nomads to park, meet up with each other, go out to restaurants, etc. Camper parks could turn into transient cities.

What do the Ideasicle Experts think?

I posed this question to them over an email and it was a lively debate. From love of driving stick shifts to driverless cars helping old folks to wondering if anyone would ever own cars. Anyway, here's what a few of them said:

Joe Alexander

How will it change culture?
A lot of chauffeurs looking for work.
No more back seat drivers.
Cops pulling cars over and saying "roll down the window" - to the passengers.
Maybe less road rage with no drivers getting mad.
No more gossiping at the carpool lane at school.
Does a driverless car need an airbag? Rear view mirrors?
Does rubber-necking end with no necks to turn to rubber?
No more honking - can you imagine how quiet NYC would be without honking.
Pretty fun to think about driverless cars.

Alan Pafenbach

Personally I find any drive on a highway over an hour to be boring with brief moments of terror. Self driving on long trips would be a natural extension of the advanced cruise control already in most cars. Lane keeping, distance separation etc. Culturally, my commutes got an order of magnitude better with the advent of hands free calling, Audible and podcasts. All make the time pass and the mind expand.

Matt Lindley

Self drive best for bumper to bumper on Merritt Parkway. 4mph. Stop. 6mph. Stop. Stays one car length behind car in front. Crawls so you don’t have to.

Claudia Caplan

My husband always had the idea that you’d be able to hook onto some sort of conveyer belt on a major highway and just program where you wanted to exit. As for me well, I drive stick shift. Or as we like to call it, the Millennial Anti-Theft Device.

Mary Webb

I have a neighbor who developed dementia. Her family bought her a Tesla so she could just press a button and get home from anywhere. Still scares the shit out of me when I see her behind the wheel. I have to assume many people are counting on self-driving cars to extend their independence as they age.

Monica Taylor

Mary hit on it earlier, but one upside of driverless cars is a better old age. No elder would experience the dreaded moment of having their keys taken away from them, and the loss of agency that follows. It could really help end some isolation and loneliness, and keep people 'in the flow' of life.
By the time we get driverless cars, we will have even more options. Sci-fi films, pulp novels and the Jetsons have shown us that we're in for multiple layers of driving. Long commutes and set routes will be on the ground and self-driving, and there will be a layer of traffic above those routes for Claudia and Obi Wan and Anakin to drive themselves.
The road will be the 'public transportation' of the future. The skies will be where we 'drive'.
So my prediction is nothing about driving culture will change except references to 'the road'.

Chad Caufield

Do we even own cars individually anymore, or do we have a broad-based networked utility at our beck and call? Which might also lead perhaps to a potential 'Red Barchetta' dystopia, where manual-driving becomes in and of itself an elitist badge, or a crime?

In closing...

There was a long back and forth on the LOVE of driving. Hands on the wheel, even stick shifts. I'll leave you with this quote from Claudia.

Claudia Caplan

Will Burns I am astounded about where this went. Figured I’d be the throwback outlier. But it turns out there is a certain personal freedom in driving your car and it’s tough to replace that. I lived in LA for many years where what you drove was more important than where you lived. No wonder “The ultimate driving machine” is such a great tagline. No wonder I still get a thrill watching 'I Love LA'.

Till next time...

Initial thoughts.

What do the Ideasicle Experts think?

In closing...

The Callaway/Good Good Ad Didn’t Fail Because It Took A Risk. It Failed Because It Had No Idea.

Will Burns on Branding, Creativity, and the Ideas Behind Great Work