Self-Driving Cars May Mean Fewer Police

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I think it's a pretty big stretch to say that self driving cars will mean less cops.

McKinsey, however, missed one of the key ways in which self-driving cars will dramatically alter society: they will have a tremendous impact on police forces around the world, potentially cutting the need for them in half.
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Self driving cars means your car can get hacked and you can be killed by someone thousands of miles away. Don't worry though, you were probably a terrorist anyways.
 
Only if they're stupid enough to put the driving logic computer on the same network as whatever wireless features they have.
 
Bullshit. The entire traffic violation mafia machine will never go away. Ever.
 
Laureolus said:
Only if they're stupid enough to put the driving logic computer on the same network as whatever wireless features they have.
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They're going to need to communicate with each other so it's unavoidable.
 
Some states are passing limits on the percentage of your budget that can be fines. It might help.

Next decade.
 
It will mean 50% as many police because all they do now anyway is make money by giving out tickets. Without that income I'd be surprised if they could afford 1/4 the cops they have now.

You can make an argument for "safety" and "you were breaking the law" so you deserve it, but safety isn't their motivation, revenue is.

Ironically enough, when you live in an area with fairly high crime (like I do) the police are out doing what they're supposed to instead of giving out tickets. So everyone in Philly drives like a total psycho.
 
I agree it will mean less cops, and to be honest, I won't feel bad for them. Most police in my city spend their time ticketing for traffic offences to fill their mandatory monthly quota. Its a BS system that does nothing to serve and protect. Its just legalized extortion.

With self driving cars, there will be little to no need to ticket any more, traffic cops will be there for serious incidents only, police budgets will take a hit because they will loss their extortion racket, thus less police.

If a car fails to operate properly on the road, it will be a manufacturer/programmer liability issue, not a driver liability.
 
If everyone has self driving cars then you'll be able to hack your own and speed all over with no cops to catch you, woot! ;)
 
What happens when the car needs to decide whether it should crash into a car that just came into oncoming traffic or swerve and hit the pedestrian walking on the sidewalk? Someone has to die and it's up to the car to decide.
 
So we have auto pilot on planes that can pretty much land themselves, but you don't think self driving cars will ever come to fruition? That's nuts. I love going on road trips, but self driving cars is inevitable. I imagine Taxi drives will be among the first to be replaced, even the CEO of Uber knows this. It's only the beginning.
 
Carouselambra said:
What happens when the car needs to decide whether it should crash into a car that just came into oncoming traffic or swerve and hit the pedestrian walking on the sidewalk? Someone has to die and it's up to the car to decide.
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If the computer times it right, it can do both!
 
All self-driving cars, at least initially, are required to have a mode that lets the driver take over. The initial systems will be "computer assisted". I think we are years away from self-driving cars.
If/when they do become mainstream, you should see less speeders (assuming the computer will obey the law), less collisions (they are aware of whats around them - but how do you deal with pedestrians, people tossing bricks from overpasses, idiots driving their own cars?
I'm also curious to see what this could do to the performance cars. If it is driving itself, do you need something that can do 0-60mph faster than other vehicles? What about cornering, larger engines, performance tires, etc.
I could see luxury cars - Corinthian leather, couches, entertainment systems, sleeping quarters (?), who knows...

Sounds way to Utopian. Let's see where this is 15 years from now.
 
You still need somebody to pick up the pieces, write the accident report and tow the POS away. And write the parking tickets, especially if you live in San Fran Sicko.
 
Steve said:
I think it's a pretty big stretch to say that self driving cars will mean less cops.
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Not so much a stretch. Self driving cars means fewer traffic tickets, which means less revenue, thus fewer cops. Speed traps don't exist because there are tons of people driving stupid. They exist because it's the least refutable way (next to parking tickets) to generate citations that don't create a cost/revenue vacuum.
 
If our government (either state or federal) does anything that reduces the number of cops I'll be dipped in shit. I see nothing but an increase in law enforcement. Those bastards. We could probably do fine with 60% less cops.
 
Carouselambra said:
What happens when the car needs to decide whether it should crash into a car that just came into oncoming traffic or swerve and hit the pedestrian walking on the sidewalk? Someone has to die and it's up to the car to decide.
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Win-Win for the lawyer no matter which occurs.
 
I can definitely see Mini cars like a golf or smart car being deployed to an area that's too dangerous for a cop (without backup to simply surveill the area and use a megaphone to instruct orders, such as in the event of an accident, disaster, or warzone. But we can prevent all three. Remember the game, Sin, emergence?
 
Police unions will never allow police forces to be trimmed and police PR people and politicians will come up with plenty of "for the children" excuses...

Maybe they will slow the hiring rate for increasing the size of police forces, but I sort of doubt that as well.
 
Carouselambra said:
What happens when the car needs to decide whether it should crash into a car that just came into oncoming traffic or swerve and hit the pedestrian walking on the sidewalk? Someone has to die and it's up to the car to decide.
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Its really not a big deal. First drivers today suck, we are almost all 'experts' behind the wheel by the age of 30, yet almost no one give the attention or care to driving they should. Where I live I am regularly run out of the cross walk by drivers not paying attention. Cars park almost in the middle of the street, and there is an accident every week at the intersection by my house. This is also one of the wealthiest cities in Canada, and the neighbourhood is generally gentrified.

I was in San Deigo a week ago, stopped counting the number of drivers that where texting, doing hair and/or makeup while driving.

So first, self driving cars will be safer, no question.

Second, if there is an incident, it will be manufacturer/programmer liability. Not driver, lawyers will love this because there is more money going after deeper pockets.

Third, The only way for a ai vehicle to get into that situation (barring glitch) would be for a person to force the situation, either the pedestrian jumping in front of the vehicle when they shouldn't (as the vehicle would obey all the rules of the road) or the oncoming car swerving into your lane, driven by a person (because the vehicle would obey all the rules of the road). Thus a person would be ultimately at fault, and the courts would have to sort that out.

I will bet there will be some degree of recording going on that would be used in the event of incident to ultimately prove liability.
 
spugm1r3 said:
Not so much a stretch. Self driving cars means fewer traffic tickets, which means less revenue, thus fewer cops. Speed traps don't exist because there are tons of people driving stupid. They exist because it's the least refutable way (next to parking tickets) to generate citations that don't create a cost/revenue vacuum.
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I can see it now, new speed traps like temp construction work, and angling the signs so the car can't see it. Then they will just mail you the ticket. Plus they will just raise the amount of the fines to make up for lost revenue. ($5,000 fine for speeding in a construction zone when no workers are present)

Never underestimate that ability of government find new ways to raise revenue.
 
Police will be reduced for one simple reason. My wife says it all the time - If we could just set our cars to cruise control for the entire ride home, we would have little reason to speed. We would have no reason to make hectic or unrational decisions because you could just sit back and play on your tablet, watch a movie, or do work while your car is doing all the driving.

What purpose do you have to take manual control of your car and speed? Frankly, I would be fearful of this eliminating a lot of the current revenue that police depend on.

It makes perfect sense to me.
 
The bigger issue than the loss in cops, will be the loss in ticket revenue, of which 50% goes to the general fund. Without that, taxes will need to be increased.
 
This combined with looser drug laws will do quite a number on the police. Which is fine by me. Why should we have more police than we need? A rhetorical question, really: government agencies from the local to the federal exist mainly to serve themselves. They're job programs above all else.
 
Well, it might have to happen whether they want it or not.

If they can't write as many tickets because automated drivers are exemplary drivers, then police departments which rely on fines as a source of revenue (which many do, especially in smaller and poorer towns) will be faced with drastic budget shortfalls.

Then we will be having the debate about how self driving cars are making us less safe due to police not being able to fight the terrorists :p
 
we could use a lot less pigs on the street if traffic violations drop to 0% due to self-driving cars

but then the pig unions will complain of job losses... the municipality will complain of loss revenue... the media will claim community safety will be at risk...

it's a stable and secure job for a reason
 
Side thought.

An autonomous car makes a mistake, and a ticket is written.

Who gets the ticket?
 
You'll get fined for being too safe like you can get fined for going under the speed limit.
 
The population is constantly growing, so if they keep the police force the same size and just do a hiring freeze, that will still mean less police.

Besides, the transition will be slow, as even if all new cars sold in 2015 were self-driving, it would take many decades to get all the old cars off the road, and I doubt you can easily retrofit a 1985 Honda CRX to be self-driving.
 
Ducman69 said:
Besides, the transition will be slow, as even if all new cars sold in 2015 were self-driving, it would take many decades to get all the old cars off the road, and I doubt you can easily retrofit a 1985 Honda CRX to be self-driving.
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Somone will probably try as a project, with a bunch of servos and a couple of Kinects :p
 
Carouselambra said:
What happens when the car needs to decide whether it should crash into a car that just came into oncoming traffic or swerve and hit the pedestrian walking on the sidewalk? Someone has to die and it's up to the car to decide.
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Hopefully it analyzes which person takes more disability, child support, who has the highest medical cost over their lifetime...essentially who's the bigger drain on our society...then kills that person.
 
steakman1971 said:
All self-driving cars, at least initially, are required to have a mode that lets the driver take over. The initial systems will be "computer assisted". I think we are years away from self-driving cars.
If/when they do become mainstream, you should see less speeders (assuming the computer will obey the law), less collisions (they are aware of whats around them - but how do you deal with pedestrians, people tossing bricks from overpasses, idiots driving their own cars?
I'm also curious to see what this could do to the performance cars. If it is driving itself, do you need something that can do 0-60mph faster than other vehicles? What about cornering, larger engines, performance tires, etc.
I could see luxury cars - Corinthian leather, couches, entertainment systems, sleeping quarters (?), who knows...

Sounds way to Utopian. Let's see where this is 15 years from now.
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About those things to deal with, since it has full visibility at all times on all sides, it can react to those things much better than a person paying full attention.

For instance, if someone drives their own car and swerves towards you, a person will have a split-second reaction, which usually just means janking the steering wheel.

Meanwhile, a self-driving car knows how your car will respond to braking, hitting the gas, and steering, it sees there's a car partially next to you and calculates that it needs to accelerate hard and dive to the left to get out of the path of the swerving car, and avoid hitting the car to your left.

It may not be able to save the situation in all cases, but in any given situation it has a better shot at it than any given person by design.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041490872 said:
Side thought.

An autonomous car makes a mistake, and a ticket is written.

Who gets the ticket?
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The owner, or no one, depending on what happened.

If your throttle sticks in your current car, you're not gonna get a speeding ticket, for example.
 
nutzo said:
I can see it now, new speed traps like temp construction work, and angling the signs so the car can't see it. Then they will just mail you the ticket. Plus they will just raise the amount of the fines to make up for lost revenue. ($5,000 fine for speeding in a construction zone when no workers are present)

Never underestimate that ability of government find new ways to raise revenue.
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If you can see it now, then you're imagining things just for the hell of it, if the car can't see it, neither can a human, so that'd be illegal, or at least grounds for tossing out said ticket.
 
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