Self-driving cars may not be widespread just yet, but it’s only a matter of time before they become a normal part of everyday life. Though some are looking forward to the technology and others are apprehensive about it, everyone agrees that transportation will never be the same again.
While all technological innovations have benefits, what’s particularly interesting about this one is that it comes with a wide array of positive second-order impacts, many of which are vastly underestimated. Self-driving cars are not just an opportunity to avoid having to focus on the road; they are an opportunity to transform society for the better.
To understand just how beneficial this technology is likely to be, let’s look at three hidden ways it can improve our lives.
1) Better Traffic
Traffic is one of the biggest problems faced by modern cities. In addition to being a massive waste of time, it also causes stress and leads to terrible fuel mileage. Fortunately, self-driving cars have the potential to radically reduce traffic by optimizing driving patterns.
Autonomous vehicles have a few advantages over humans that allow them to improve traffic flow. For one, they can drive in a perfectly optimal way, accelerating and decelerating with a logical rigor that isn’t subject to human error. What’s more, autonomous vehicles can talk to each other. When these features are combined, the potential is huge.
“Connected autonomous vehicles excel in eliminating uncertainties arising from human driving behaviors,” researchers note in a 2024 paper. “Consequently, they alleviate the issue of ‘phantom congestion’, a phenomenon that significantly impacts traffic efficiency, safety and sustainability while simultaneously enhancing overall traffic flow stability and safety.”
“Phantom congestion” is traffic that arises from simple human errors in driving — like braking too quickly — rather than from an identifiable cause like an accident or construction. With self-driving vehicles, this source of traffic will be a thing of the past, and traffic that is unavoidable will be handled much more optimally.
With less traffic, people will have more time, less stress, and better mileage. And better mileage doesn’t just mean fuel savings; it also means fewer emissions going into the environment for every mile travelled.
But the hidden benefits hardly stop there.
2) Improved Road Safety
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 39,345 people died in traffic accidents in the US in 2024. That number has fluctuated in recent decades, but in general it has remained stubbornly high — a sobering reminder that driving is one of the most dangerous activities that we do on a regular basis. For children and youth, traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of death.
The good news is that self-driving vehicles can help us mitigate the risk of traffic accidents — a lot. According to a 2015 NHTSA report, 94 percent of crashes have driver error as the “critical reason” for the crash. While that number has been questioned in recent years, it’s clear that eliminating human error has the potential to make our roads considerably safer. That means fewer lives lost, fewer injuries, less traffic from accidents, less strain on emergency services, and, from a financial standpoint, lower insurance premiums.
3) A Stronger Economy
One of the biggest changes that will likely emerge with self-driving cars is the rise of self-driving trucks and taxis, which will seriously disrupt the $1.8 trillion transportation industry in the US. With no more need to hire a driver, moving people and goods from one point to another will become considerably cheaper, and lower transportation costs also means lower costs for any product that relies on transportation, which is just about everything.
Imagine if instead of individual taxi and Uber drivers, there were companies that managed a fleet of self-driving taxis. The car would drive itself to the pick-up location, drive you to your destination, and then drive off to the next job. True, you would still have to pay to cover the vehicle expenses and the company’s operations, but you wouldn’t have to pay for a driver’s time, which is no doubt a significant part of the current cost of a taxi ride.
Add in the economic benefits of better traffic and road safety, and you’re looking at a technology that could make a real difference for global prosperity.
What about Drawbacks?
While self-driving cars come with many benefits, there are also legitimate concerns around them that are worth taking seriously. Cars that can talk to each other are great, for instance, but what if I don’t want my information being shared? Privacy is important, and it will be necessary to find ways of preserving it in the self-driving era.
Another factor to consider is ethics. Since accidents can’t be fully eliminated even in a self-driving world, autonomous vehicles have to be programmed to make sudden trolley problem-style decisions — do I hit the cyclist or risk the driver’s life? If cars are programmed to always prioritize the driver, there could be some genuine concerns about how that will play out on the streets.
Economically speaking, the downside of self-driving trucks and taxis is thousands of truck drivers and taxi drivers finding themselves out of work. Adjusting to the new economic reality is probably best — we don’t want to preserve obsolete industries in perpetuity — but it’s understandable to be worried about how that transition will take place.
Having said that, the benefits to be gained from self-driving cars seem to far outweigh the downsides. So let’s not let fear get in the way of technological progress; instead, let’s push forward and find ways to manage the hard parts.
The results will be well worth it.