What difference will they make?

Driverless cars will in the future have a major impact on the current car related world forcing some things to change or even become obsolete.

First obvious question is will there still be cars driven by humans. Where driverless cars will mostly be used during the week I believe there will still be the weekend warriors with petrol drinking V8 or V12’s burning up the highways, dirt tracks and B roads of the country.

And what about motorbikes will they remain and also driverless? The slow move from petrol to electric bikes is a good indicator that driverless bikes might be the one step too far for the biking fraternity. The whole biking ethos can never be replicated by a computerised bike doing all the work for you and god forbid the bikes will even programmed to abide by the rules, born to be wild, I don’t think so. Ironically though there may be demand for driverless bikes from bikers who have crashed  their bikes and yet still want to continue to enjoy the biking experience that their injuries would stop them from enjoying unless they were riding on a driverless bike.       

One phenomenon that might become obsolete is the sight of the middle lane motorway driver as they appear to be the perfect target market for the driverless car revolution thereby leaving the driverless cars to do battle in the outside lane with the diehard petrol heads.

So what other differences might we see if driverless cars become the normal?

• Road signs saying how many people were killed here last month – Obsolete unless a sadistic hacker has intervened.
• Stickers saying “How is my driving” – Obsolete
• Country and Western songs will now be saying wife, dog and even their driverless pick- up left them- Addition
• Police car chases – Interesting scenario as I am sure there will be humans wanting to prove that they can beat a computerised driverless police pursuit car and will see it as a badge of honour in doing so.
• Road rage – Obsolete for the driverless cars although petrolheads might be upset by the driverless cars sticking to all of the rules.
• Amber gamblers – Obsolete for driverless cars as they will stick to the rules
• Roadkill – Hopefully evolution will tell animals that it is better odd on the roads during the week as the driverless cars will try and avoid them rather chancing their luck with the potpourri of drivers out at the weekends.
• Car accessories i.e. racing seats,driving gloves, sports steering wheels, customized gear knobs.. Obsolete
• Speeding tickets, driving courses, licence points – Obsolete for driverless cars as they stick to the rules.
• After market upgrades – Interesting scenario as there could be an underground market that chips driverless cars to get them to ignore certain rules/restrictions/speed limits.
• TV shows – Adapt. TV shows like Top Gear might have to adapt with a digitised Stig and a celebrity in the back of a reasonably priced driverless car. Wheeler Dealers will probably still be on with a Mike Brewer-like still picking up classic petrol/diesel/electric cars that still need saving by an Ed China-like for the weekend brigade.
• Dodgy parking made legitimate by the use of hazard warning lights – obsolete as driverless cars will abide by any parking restrictions in place.
• Blue disabled badges – This could be a challenge for the driverless car programmer as after programming the car to obey all the road restrictions they will then need to build a blue disabled badge program to to tell the car not obey all or some restrictions.
• Cars flashing their lights to let cars out of side roads – I expect driverless cars will communicate somehow and so the light flashing courtesy will become obsolete.
• Not letting BMW drivers out of side roads- See After market upgrades!!

If the driverless cars do fully take off then expect a revolution of changes that will need to be made to accommodate them.