Why Self driving cars matter and what our future looks like.

The US government has a classification on what an autonomous car looks like and it may surprise you. Just to give you a reference here it is,

Level 0: The driver completely controls the vehicle at all times.
Level 1: Individual vehicle controls are automated, such as electronic stability control or automatic braking.
Level 2: At least two controls can be automated in unison, such as adaptive cruise control in combination with lane keeping.
Level 3: The driver can fully cede control of all safety-critical functions in certain conditions. The car senses when conditions require the driver to retake control and provides a "sufficiently comfortable transition time" for the driver to do so.
Level 4: The vehicle performs all safety-critical functions for the entire trip, with the driver not expected to control the vehicle at any time. As this vehicle would control all functions from start to stop, including all parking functions, it could include unoccupied cars.

   We already have cars out on the road that are at level 3 autonomy. All of those commercials, of the happy family saved by the car braking for someone not paying attention, show features that exist on the newest cars. I think this ranking system already proves how much we have evolved car AND how quiet these improvements can roll out. I was going to write about how Google has been working and improving the fully autonomous cars, but that's only one method of pushing smart cars on the world. The other way of pushing smarter cars is by having the computer slowly take over driving functionality. 

   My idea is that self driving cars will happen and its only a matter of when. Here are my reasons as to why this will happen. Traditional car companies, like the one above making self braking cars, will want to take the driver out of the car for many reasons. Initially, cars sold with this computer guided tech will be marketed as safe and they will be. These safe cars should cut down on the 30,000 car traffic fatalities (in 2013, from iihs.org). What better way to market your car to the american people.

   Smarter car companies will look at the safer roads and see a huge decline in repairing and replacing cars and will have to adapt. All of these new cars will have more and more complicated computers on board. One way to adapt to a driverless system is to make software updates a thing that only dealerships can do. This would kill mechanic shops and expand how dealerships operate. These methods are already in the process of being implemented. This is the slow and steady route of "adding safety features" that will get rid of the driver. 

   The more aggressive route is from the tech companies. Instead of slowly pushing more and more updates to the traditional car, Google wants to just drop you into a fully autonomous car. There is no slow gradual process of adding cruise control, backup cameras, or self parking features, there is only the fully autonomous car. And this car is not that far off. They are already allowed for testing and driving in Nevada, California, Michigan and Florida. This doesn't mean that they can drive in a parking lot, but that they can actually test on public roads.

I guess what I am trying to argue or say about driverless cars is that they are here and it's going to be very difficult to ignore or not use one in the future. People may hold onto the idea that they are good drivers or that they want to keep manual control of their car but, once insurance companies see how great these cars are, it will be impossible to go back to a manual car. The advancement of cars has always been safety and reliability. What better way to improve cars by removing the most dangerous and unpredictable part of them, the human.