I grew up in an older, mixed suburb; a common complaint I've heard from young people who grew up in other circumstances is they grew up in huge multi-square mil

I grew up in an older, mixed suburb; a common complaint I've heard from young people who grew up in other circumstances is they grew up in huge multi-square mile monolithic subdivisions with nothing to do within walking distance as a kid. One interesting social effect of self driving cars would be "mom" (it always seems to be mom stuck with the job) no longer has to taxi drive their kid everywhere... Essentially every little kids has private limo service. So if the closest public library is 5 miles down the interstate, a kid living there can get a similar life experience to my burb where the library was about 10 minute bike ride away. Wanna go to the park, fine. Wanna go to the library, fine. If kids still hang out at the mall, they can go there too. Friends house is 7 miles away? The self driving car won't care. And a second-level social effect is the self driving car may eliminate helicopter parent attitudes toward kids being unsupervised... Well, maybe. Another social effect people have not discussed is employers love sick employees to show up to work, cough on everyone to demonstrate their devotion to the cause, not to mention primate dominance (I can make you work when you're near dead, not vice versa). Often when I call in sick its not because I can't sit quietly and appear to be busy, similar to sitting on my couch, its because I literally can't safely drive when I'm this sick or medicated or sleepless or vomiting or whatever. Self driving cars mean workplaces are going to be even more like a sweatshop from centuries past at least WRT illness. The lower classes packed cheek to jowl sneezing and coughing on each other while moaning in pain... There are people who get off on other people suffering like that and they're going to really like self driving cars.