This morning we got an email from a reader called Mitch:

I for one, can’t wait to get my hands on a driverless car. At the age of 20, Doctor’s discovered a tumor in my brainstem and with the advancement of modern technology, I am still alive. Yes, I hate the fact that I have no balance, can’t walk, run, or ride a bike…

I have bad depth perception,so insurance is through the roof, but would love a driverless car just to go to Dunkin donuts for coffee!

Globally 10% of the population has a disability (15% if you believe the WHO). For those of us in the developed world, some form of disability (and by extension loss of mobility) is almost inevitable as we enter our final years. (On the other hand if you’re like me and are prone to sports injuries, ending up in a sling or crutches also temporarily prevents me from driving).

Driverless cars are going to allow millions of people with disabilities to become more mobile and able to participate in the economy and society. The same goes for other disadvantaged groups, namely, households at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder who live outside their city’s job and transport hubs.

I think in the end this is why driverless cars will become a reality, the market is there for one thing. For another, I think most politicians and policy makers will will want to encourage this technology. Its preferable to help millions of their less well off constituents rather than hinder it to preserve jobs in the transport sector.

xkcd.com

Here at DriverlessCarHQ.com one reason we love the idea of robotic cars is that these cars should result in a massive reduction in motor vehicle related fatalities. The World Health Organisation estimates that nearly 1.3 million people die every year from car accidents and at least another 20 million are injured. The majority of these accidents are invariably the result of human error.

Driverless cars on the other hand don’t have lapses of concentration, get fatigued, distracted by their phone or passenger, don’t get drunk, take drugs or make bizzare and/or irrational decisions.

So, in theory if driverless cars were ubiquitous then car fatalities could be a thing of the past. Interestingly, one downside of less road fatalities means less solid organs available for transplantation, it is well known that selt belt campaigns for cars and helmet laws for bicycles have cut road fatalities and this is correlated with a reduction in the number of organ donors. But even after these reductions due to improved safety, estimates put motor vehicle accidents as the source of 21% of solid organs for transplant. If driverless cars reduce the road toll then this drastically reduces the rate of organ donation.

So what policies should society consider to fix this problem.

1. Boost Organ Donation Rates.

Governments should consider systems where everyone is a potential organ donor but can opt out (like Spain). Other potential models include a ‘points’ system like in Israel where organ donors go higher up the list if they require a transplant themselves.

2. Boost R&D. 

Investing R&D funds into organ transplant alternatives is highly necessary. The problem is that research on engineering projects takes less time than biological ones (think ‘going to the moon’ versus ‘a cure for cancer’).

3. Consider More Controversial Ideas.

Some countries like Iran pay donors in cash and health insurance. Paying organ donors is a highly controversial idea. Proponents of organ markets argue that its less evil to sell organs than it is to let millions of people die due to lack of available organs. Opponents argue that potential donors won’t act in their rational self interest such as the case of the 17 year old Chinese boy, who sold a kidney for an iPad 2.

Thanks to driverless cars, the organ transplant bottleneck is coming, how would you solve it?

An article by Ezra Klein in the Washington Post suggests that its very difficult to predict how much Americans will spend on future healthcare because of technological advances like driverless cars reducing the number of people killed or injured. The article itself covers several topics so here’s the bit on driverless cars:

Advances in information processing mean driverless cars are coming, and fast. If you live in the Bay Area, actually, they’re already here. Let’s say — and I don’t know if this is optimistic or pessimistic — that full adoption of driverless cars could cut the number of accidents in half.

In 2010, more than 32,000 Americans were killed in car accidents, more than 2 million were injured, and the resulting medical costs and productivity losses were, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the $100 billion range. Car accidents are theleading cause of death for Americans between the ages of one and 30.

The only thing I would disagree with is that driverless cars would cut the number of accidents in half. I would suggest that a 99% reduction in accidents is more likely (once driverless cars are widespread and all the bugs are worked out). I base this on the current data that prototype cars by Google and others don’t seem to cause accidents, at least not yet.

Apart from that we have previously noted that driverless cars may cause a shortage of  donor organs  as less people dying due to automotive fatalities will reduce the pool or organ donors.