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I do not say this lightly -- this is a stupid, stupid concern. Driverless cars will not circle for an hour unless their owners have free energy. If (and this i

I do not say this lightly -- this is a stupid, stupid concern. Driverless cars will not circle for an hour unless their owners have free energy. If (and this is a big if) the typical driverless car is owned by a single party and not needed, the rational economic incentive will be to park it somewhere safe where it can't get into trouble and will be close by where you need it. Let's imagine a thought experiment about our new $125,000 2019 self driving Tesla Model S, right after it drops me off in Mountain View. Do I send it out to circle through the peninsula, or do I tell it to park somewhere 'optimal' meaning some local optimum of close by, cheap and safe? Even if it's my new $22,000 2022 self-driving Nissan Leaf, why risk road time, wear and tear and battery run-down? This just makes no sense as an issue that litigators need to get on top of.

Tiktaalik 11y ago
In your thought experiment there is still a scenario where there is a car driving around driverless, if even for a short amount of time. That's a new increase in traffic beyond what we have now. This is only the most extreme edge case and it's not worth focusing too much on. The scenarios examined in the KPMG study the blog post cited are more typical and more concerning. That study finds that there will be a very significant increase in traffic due to people younger and older than current drivers that could never drive before now being able to drive. It is a good thing that we are expanding access to transportation for people that had poor access before, but achieving this using autonomous vehicles will certainly increase the amount of cars on the road.