By now, everyone seems to understand that autonomous cars are the way of the future. Self-driving vehicles promise to reduce the number of automobile accidents on our roads, keep traffic humming along, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  There is one group of people, however, who aren’t all that excited about autonomous vehicles – drivers.

An online survey of 505 licensed drivers gauges their thoughts about autonomous vehicles. While the survey is small, it points to some interesting attitudes about autonomous cars.  Here are some of the results:
–  When respondents were asked about the degree of self-driving capabilities they’d like to see in autonomous cars, a whopping 43.8 percent said that they didn’t want to see any self-driving capability at all. Only 15.6 percent said that they wanted vehicles to be entirely autonomous.
–  Women were most likely to prefer the “no self-driving” option. On the whole, 47.6 percent of women surveyed said that they’d rather cars didn’t drive themselves at all.
–  Though older respondents were least excited about fully autonomous vehicles, even young drivers were wary of the technology.
–  And 96.2 percent of those polled wanted “to have a steering wheel plus gas and brake pedals (or some other controls) available in completely self-driving vehicles”.

We also have to look at whether Autonomous Cars will annihilate city budgets.  Here are a few points to consider:
–  Autonomous cars won’t end auto accidents overnight, but as the technology evolves, improves, and becomes more widely available, the number of traffic accidents is likely to plummet. As a result…
–  State and local governments currently pay a huge price for traffic accidents. Together, they foot the bill for around seven percent of emergency services, property damage, traffic court costs, lost productivity, and other expenses. Autonomous cars promise to free up that money and put it to use elsewhere, which is great because…
–  If you’ve ever been pulled over for speeding — or worse, received a ticket from a traffic camera — you know that fines can be steep. Cities depend on those fines to keep things running. But autonomous cars will put those cash cows out to pasture. They’re such goodie-goodies, they won’t speed, they won’t drive drunk, and so, they won’t generate billions in fees.

So what’s the bottom line here?  City and State officials should start planning for autonomous cars very, very soon… taking a close look at their expenses in very specific area that might be going away.
While autonomous cars seem to be a staple in the future of road travel, one must start to consider what it may really mean to have these futuristic vehicles actually on the road.

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