As a suburban dog owner a lot of my casual conversations are with stay-at-home moms. On a recent morning walk two stay-at-home moms (and dog owners) commiserated about how their hectic lives and overstuffed schedules. Example: “I need at least three extra hours every day.” I asked one of them what she had planned for the day. She responded with “I have two doctors’ appointments for myself and then my personal trainer. Then I have to pick my [teenage] daughter up from school at 4 and drop her off again at 6:30 and then there is another pickup at 7:30 and somehow I have to find time to make dinner.” Her old daughter is at college and refusing to talk to her at all, which saves some time, but there is still the chauffeur job.
For a wage slave it wouldn’t seem that the self-driving car will usher in a new world. Roughly the same amount of time will still be spent on the road, perhaps listening to OPR (Obama Praise Radio). But for a stay-at-home mother who is currently spending a lot of time driving children to various enrichment activities, a car that can ferry the kids should open up close to the three hours extra per day that this mother said she needed.
Readers: What do you think? Whose lives will be most changed by the self-driving car? (Aside from the obvious: Uber drivers!)
It would be a game changer for guys who sit in front of computers all day. Based on modern commuting times on 680, it would amount to another 3 productive hours/day. A new generation of web development languages & food delivery apps could be launched. Buyout valuations could hit 18 figures. A more problematic outcome is if the commute time didn’t matter, more people would just live in their cars, eating meals, taking showers, & sleeping. It could depress housing prices near jobs. CEOs could go underwater on their mortgages again & the government would have to artificially reinflate housing prices again. Maybe it would entail a hotel tax for people who sleep during their commutes.
Our kids both have the Uber app on their phones to use “in case of emergency.” But more and more of our acquaintances are using Uber to transport their jr high to high school-aged children (unattended), especially when they have multiple children with conflicting schedules. So, whose lives will be most changed? Those who previously did not have (easy) access to transportation – children and the elderly – and those who are/were their caretakers. Imagine the stay-at-home mother with two activity-laden children from your post, but also with two elderly parents with chronic illnesses who each need to go the doctor a couple of times a week.
That has been my biggest regret about self driving cars. They are coming too late to help me with driving kids around.
No, no amount of labor-saving technologies will ease their complaints. The moms will complain no matter what. They will list more tasks that they could be doing.
Philg, it’s no use. George has it absolutely right. Any man above the age of 40 and married knows, nothing in this world can satisfy a woman with kids. They will complain no matter what. Bill Burr said it best when he made fun of Oprah’s ‘motherhood is most difficult job on the planet’:
I think restaurant and bar owners will benefit. People will be able to drink without worrying about getting home safely.
I think any events that the elderly would like to attend but don’t want to drive to could see more attendance. (Church, symphony concerts, sporting events)
I am expecting people to move a lot further from their jobs, once cars are able to drive themselves. If you can watch TV while you commute, I expect a lot of people will buy large vehicles and move much further from work. Not sure this is a great thing, but that’s what I expect.
+1 for worse traffic, as the affluent use the extra self-driver to send their dog to his grooming session while they head to the salon. Update to the classic cartoon: “On the freeway, nobody knows you’re a dog”.
A Lyft driver I talked to said one of his regular gigs was hauling teenagers around to activities. Parents are fine with it because they can track the car moment by moment on their phone.
I have no idea why the SAHMs you know don’t partake of delivery services and dropoff/pickup drivers , which are readily available all over the country. In several places I’ve lived, it’s trivial already to hire a driver to take everyone to everything for no different than uber prices, sometimes less.
I certainly did when I wasn’t living in the boonies. As ever, I don’t see self-driving cars being a game-changer when you consider the children issue. Nobody will let kids or even teens get to self-drive anywhere anytime soon.
Obama Praise Radio. When I was a kid people would criticize the Soviets for Pravda and other state organs of propaganda.
Yes, I would use the SF cars! The comments are amazing! Love you all!