<story><title>Forget self-driving car anxiety: In the early days human drivers were the fear</title><url>https://timeline.com/forget-self-driving-car-anxiety-in-the-early-days-human-drivers-were-the-fear-55a770262c10#.vf6ekg4kz</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>edblarney</author><text>Eventually - maybe in 20 years - humans won&amp;#x27;t be even allowed to drive.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll bet they even ban hobbyist driving - like those who &amp;#x27;still have old cars&amp;#x27; and want to drive on those &amp;#x27;old car roads&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;Statistically too dangerous. Far more dangerous than anything else we really do - certainly more than smoking. And when it&amp;#x27;s no longer a &amp;#x27;necessity&amp;#x27; ...&lt;p&gt;Do you remember those movies before the 1960&amp;#x27;s when they get in cars and they don&amp;#x27;t even have seat-belts - and we &amp;#x27;gasp&amp;#x27; ... &amp;#x27;OMG&amp;#x27; ...&lt;p&gt;I think our grandchildren will gasp when we tell them we drove cars. They will think we were crazy and uncivilized, we&amp;#x27;ll call them wimps.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll want to teach your grandson to drive, your daughter in law will be upset and call you a crazy old man :)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gambiting</author><text>&amp;quot;Eventually - maybe in 20 years - humans won&amp;#x27;t be even allowed to drive.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see that happening for a century. Unless you subsidize the cost of purchase of a new car for everyone who has a car now, and associated costs of owning a new vehicle.&lt;p&gt;Where I&amp;#x27;m from(Poland) the average age of a car is 16 years.  Buying a new car, even if it&amp;#x27;s something very cheap like a Fiat Panda, is still a huge deal.&lt;p&gt;Why would you care about what purchasing power is like in Poland you ask? Well, because at the moment I can drive my car literally around the world, without modifying it an inch. If some countries start banning manual cars, then suddenly you can&amp;#x27;t cross certain borders anymore - that&amp;#x27;s almost idiotic. If the ban of manual cars is going to happen, it will need to happen almost worldwide at the same time, and that&amp;#x27;s absolutely, definitely, completely not happening in the next 20 years.&lt;p&gt;I actually think your example with cars without seatbelts is great, because it illustrates what will happen with manually-driven cars - instead of banning them, they will eventually become so rare there will be no need to ban them, just like you can still drive your 1950 car without seat belts or airbags.</text></comment>
<story><title>Forget self-driving car anxiety: In the early days human drivers were the fear</title><url>https://timeline.com/forget-self-driving-car-anxiety-in-the-early-days-human-drivers-were-the-fear-55a770262c10#.vf6ekg4kz</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>edblarney</author><text>Eventually - maybe in 20 years - humans won&amp;#x27;t be even allowed to drive.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll bet they even ban hobbyist driving - like those who &amp;#x27;still have old cars&amp;#x27; and want to drive on those &amp;#x27;old car roads&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;Statistically too dangerous. Far more dangerous than anything else we really do - certainly more than smoking. And when it&amp;#x27;s no longer a &amp;#x27;necessity&amp;#x27; ...&lt;p&gt;Do you remember those movies before the 1960&amp;#x27;s when they get in cars and they don&amp;#x27;t even have seat-belts - and we &amp;#x27;gasp&amp;#x27; ... &amp;#x27;OMG&amp;#x27; ...&lt;p&gt;I think our grandchildren will gasp when we tell them we drove cars. They will think we were crazy and uncivilized, we&amp;#x27;ll call them wimps.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll want to teach your grandson to drive, your daughter in law will be upset and call you a crazy old man :)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>somehnreader</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;ll bet they even ban hobbyist driving - like those who &amp;#x27;still have old cars&amp;#x27; and want to drive on those &amp;#x27;old car roads&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;Absolutely not. That will never ever happen. F1, DTM, MotoGP, MonsterTrucks, NASCAR , Rallye Dakar are all well too amazing to allow for that.&lt;p&gt;I agree, your commute form SF to Palo Alto and similar boring activities will be automated away, but there are way too many enthusiasts to allow hobbyist driving to ever disappear completely. Maybe, but only maybe, have them confined to racetracks or leisure roads, but I doubt it.&lt;p&gt;Source: I love cars and bikes and would go berserk if someone would tell me I am not allowed to drive anymore and I know hundreds of people that would feel the same.</text></comment>