File:Another Reason to Welcome Our Robocar Overlords (8052092888).png

No teen driving.

My dream is that if my kids can make it through college without a car, then by that point in the future, there will be no reason to learn how to drive.

Imagine skipping the teen driving years altogether. Year one is a death trap for all, and <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/7130491717/#comment72157629578698680">ADD teens are worse than drunk drivers</a> in some studies. Imagine driving drunk for a year.

The robocars are on my mind and on <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/10/03/162187419/calif-green-lights-self-driving-cars-but-legal-kinks-linger" rel="noreferrer nofollow">NPR today</a> as California just passed a law making them street legal. The opening video there is a pretty interesting place to start (stay with it through minute 2).

I was surprised to hear this part of the program:

“Ending Traffic Jams

Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist and self-driving car enthusiast, says safety is a huge benefit, but that's just the beginning.

"Because we are going to go from about a billion cars on the road today to about 2 to 4 billion in the next 50 years, we can't accommodate that in anything approaching the infrastructure we have in place," Jurvetson says.

Picture global gridlock. If we don't do something dramatic to enhance infrastructure or the way cars drive, Jurvetson says, the traffic jams will be unimaginable.

"But with autonomous cars, they can drive two to three times more densely," he says. "You could, in fact today, remove all traffic jams from America if all cars went this way."