Tag Archives: cars

Self-driving cars mainly about making roads safer?

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Here is an argument for why we will eventually move, like Nevada has already done and California is doing now, toward self-driving cars: they are safer.

The Economist notes that about 90 percent of traffic accidents are caused by human error, meaning that if humans are taken out of the process, there’s a strong probably that accident rates will plummet.

Even so, the bill requires the cars to have a flesh-and-blood human being behind the wheel if something goes wrong.

“It sounds space age, but it’s almost here,” Padilla told the San Jose Mercury News. “If we can reduce the number of accidents, that alone is worth doing this bill.”…

Despite the bill’s widespread political support, some quarters have voiced reservations, particularly over what happens if driverless cars crash and lawsuits are filed. “This does not protect adequately the manufacturers for liability concerns,” Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers spokesman Dan Gage told the Mercury News.

Safety is the trump argument these days in American politics: if you can argue a policy or change will save lives, perhaps even just a few, this is a powerful rationale.

I still wonder how long it will take for drivers to adjust to this and whether everyone would want to give up driving. Part of the appeal of driving in American culture is that it allows individuals to control their destiny, decide where to go and then drive yourself there. If cars were driverless, what would there be to do, particularly if the driver still has to sit behind the wheel in case something goes wrong? Will the thrill of driving disappear?

As this article notes and I’ve noted before, Google has been a key actor in pushing this technology forward.

How will American culture change since Millennials want to buy the newest smartphones rather than cars and houses?

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Here is part of a fascinating article about what Millennials want to purchase and how this differs from the consumption of previous generations:

Needless to say, the Great Recession is responsible for some of the decline. But it’s highly possible that a perfect storm of economic and demographic factors—from high gas prices, to re-­urbanization, to stagnating wages, to new technologies enabling a different kind of consumption—has fundamentally changed the game for Millennials. The largest generation in American history might never spend as lavishly as its parents did—nor on the same things. Since the end of World War II, new cars and suburban houses have powered the world’s largest economy and propelled our most impressive recoveries. Millennials may have lost interest in both…Subaru’s publicist Doug O’Reilly told us, “The Millennial wants to tell people not just ‘I’ve made it,’ but also ‘I’m a tech person.’?” Smartphones compete against cars for young people’s big-ticket dollars, since the cost of a good phone and data plan can exceed $1,000 a year. But they also provide some of the same psychic benefits—opening new vistas and carrying us far from the physical space in which we reside. “You no longer need to feel connected to your friends with a car when you have this technology that’s so ubiquitous, it transcends time and space,” Connelly said.

In other words, mobile technology has empowered more than just car-sharing. It has empowered friendships that can be maintained from a distance. The upshot could be a continuing shift from automobiles to mobile technology, and a big reduction in spending…

In some respects, Millennials’ residential aspirations appear to be changing just as significantly as their driving habits—indeed, the two may be related. The old cul-de-sacs of Revolutionary Road and Desperate Housewives have fallen out of favor with Generation Y. Rising instead are both city centers and what some developers call “urban light”—denser suburbs that revolve around a walkable town center. “People are very eager to create a life that blends the best features of the American suburb—schools still being the primary, although not the only, draw—and urbanity,” says Adam Ducker, a managing director at the real-estate consultancy RCLCO. These are places like Culver City, California, and Evanston, Illinois, where residents can stroll among shops and restaurants or hop on public transportation. Such small cities and town centers lend themselves to tighter, smaller housing developments, whether apartments in the middle of town, or small houses a five-minute drive away. An RCLCO survey from 2007 found that 43 percent of Gen?Yers would prefer to live in a close-in suburb, where both the houses and the need for a car are smaller.

This article is primarily about the economic impacts of these shifting patterns but I think there is another important side to this: how does this affect American culture? A few ideas…

1. What makes up the American Dream will likely shift. We have gone almost 100 years with this combination: a house of one’s own and a car (or multiple cars in recent decades). The content of this dream will change and the pace to which people pursue it. Newest additions to the Dream: can I get a smartphone with an unthrottled data plan? How about a living arrangement that is exciting in terms of having nearby cultural and social opportunities but doesn’t tie one down financially?

2. As fewer teenagers see getting a driver’s license as the same sort of initiation into adulthood and freedom as previous generations, perhaps we have a new marker of adulthood: getting the first smartphone (with at least texting capabilities and perhaps also data).

3. As I’ve discussed before, the possible new kinds of suburbia we might see in the coming decades would be a remarkable shift away from completely auto-dependent developments. This will lead to some interesting consequences for housing. New Urbanism may just explode in popularity (as long as such developments are reasonably priced).

4. The car is no longer an important status symbol but rather more like a tool that is used to get from Point A to Point B. Tools may have some fun features but the number one concern is that that they function consistently. In contrast, the phone (and what one can do with it) becomes a status symbol.

5. As we’ve seen in recent years, announcements of new technologies and smartphones will garner increasing levels of attention. Just look at what happens when we get close to an Apple announcement for the newer iPhone (or iPad). Cars and houses will have to fight even harder for your attention. How this changes the ratio and content of commercials will be interesting to watch.

6. When are we going to see television shows and movies that truly reflect plugged in and online worlds? We have plenty of examples where characters use these devices but precious few that show what it is like to consistently operate in the online and offline worlds. The movie Catfish comes to mind. While most online users won’t go to the lengths the characters do in this movie, at least it depicts people living out real relationships in the online sphere.

7. A growing push for cheaper, faster, perhaps even free Internet access everywhere. To be disconnected will be viewed as more and more undesirable.

8. Revamping existing housing stock will require some imagination and creativity in marketing, construction, and financing.

9. Building off Richard Florida’s ideas about the creative class, what happens when this group becomes too big and unwieldy and is no longer “select,” there are not enough places that meet their requirements (not everywhere can be Austin), and not enough jobs for people with their education and interests? Obviously, shifts can take place but these won’t necessarily be easy.

Measuring “peak car” in the United States

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With data suggesting congestion, the number of teenagers with driver’s licenses, and the numbers of miles driven has dropped in recent years, Scientific American asks whether we have reached “peak car”:

According to the Federal Highway Administration’s “2011 Urban Congestion Trends” report, there was a 1.2 percent decline in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) last year compared with 2010. The drop follows years of stagnant growth in vehicle travel following a peak in 2007, before the economic downturn…

Her observation is true for the entire country. Rather than maintain the 50-year legacy of a 2 to 4 percent increase in vehicle travel each year, the annual number of VMT in the United States has stalled and even gone into reverse. The total number of miles driven in the United States today is the same as in 2004…

The interesting thing for Roy Kienitz, transportation infrastructure consultant and former undersecretary for policy at the Department of Transportation, is that American drivers actually started changing their individual driving habits years before the recession started.

The overall number of miles traveled by road peaked just before the market collapsed, but the number of VMT per capita peaked in 2004 and declined over the next eight years until today, according to Kienitz’s research, which is based on publicly available data.

Interesting. But I’m not sure this is the best way to measure “peak car.” While miles driven by road may be important to note, there are other factors that matters. Here are a few:

-The number of vehicles bought.

-The number of vehicles licensed.

-The number or % of people with driver’s licenses.

-The average number of trips people make on a daily basis. This gives you different information than the number of miles driven per year.

-Whether travel by other modes has increased or whether overall miles traveled is down. This would help show whether people are using cars less or really all travel is down.

Looking at all of these figures would help provide a more complete picture of whether we are at “peak car.”

Also, even if Americans are driving less overall, this doesn’t necessarily mean that cars are valued less or are less culturally important. Driving less doesn’t automatically mean most or even a significant number of Americans want to get rid of their cars or the freedom and individualism they represent.

How streets came to be for cars and not for pedestrians

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There is little doubt that American streets and roads are typically made to optimize the driving experience. It wasn’t always this way:

According to Peter Norton, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia and the author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, the change is no accident (so to speak). He has done extensive research into how our view of streets was systematically and deliberately shifted by the automobile industry, as was the law itself.

“If you ask people today what a street is for, they will say cars,” says Norton. “That’s practically the opposite of what they would have said 100 years ago.”

Streets back then were vibrant places with a multitude of users and uses. When the automobile first showed up, Norton says, it was seen as an intruder and a menace. Editorial cartoons regularly depicted the Grim Reaper behind the wheel. That image persisted well into the 1920s…

Norton explains that in the automobile’s earliest years, the principles of common law applied to crashes. In the case of a collision, the larger, heavier vehicle was deemed to be at fault. The responsibility for crashes always lay with the driver.

Public opinion was on the side of the pedestrian, as well. “There was a lot of anger in the early years,” says Norton. “A lot of resentment against cars for endangering streets.” Auto clubs and manufacturers realized they had a big image problem, Norton says, and they moved aggressively to change the way Americans thought about cars, streets, and traffic. “They said, ‘If we’re going to have a future for cars in the city, we have to change that. They’re being portrayed as Satan’s murdering machines.'”

A fascinating story: as the car became more popular and the auto industry banded together, understandings of streets changed. If you look at old pictures of streets before the 1920s, they often seem like the Wild West: there are carts big and small (plus animals providing the power), pedestrians, sometimes electric streetcars, and more.

This reminds me of the efforts of New Urbanists to redesign streets so that cars become less dominant. They typically suggest several changes: reducing the width of the road, allowing cars to park on both sides of the road (this makes drivers more cautious), and putting trees close to the edges of the road to create another barrier between cars and pedestrians.

The suburban critic James Howard Kunstler is also fond of showing pictures of barren intersections where multiple 4-6 lane roads come together and the scale dwarfs even the most hardy pedestrians.

It is amusing to think of cars being portrayed today as “Satan’s murdering machines” – even though car accidents are a leading cause of death.

Fewer teenagers and young adults getting their driver’s license

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The Financial Times cite some interesting statistics about the rise in the number of teenagers and young adults who are not getting their driver’s licenses. While a number of explanatory factors are cited such as economic conditions, not needing cars as much because of social media, and young adults rejecting direct advertising from car makers, I’m more interested in another issue: what does this say about driving as a rite of passage as part of the transition from being a teenager to becoming an adult? This is well ingrained in American culture and lore but if fewer young adults see it as worthwhile, it could practically wipe the genre of cliched high school movies by itself. Forget about emerging adults delaying marriage; some don’t even want to be able to drive!

There is no mention of this in the article but I would be interested to know the spatial distribution of 16-34 year olds in the United States. It is much easier to go without a car in a denser, more urban setting. Does this mean that compared to the general population, a higher percentage of this age group lives in such denser settings?

Driving today is much safer than in the past

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An article (“Safer Passage”) in the latest issue of Time has shows that the fatality rate from driving has dropped a lot over the years. Here is a description of the issue:

America’s roadways are safer than ever. The latest data show that traffic fatalities are at their lowest level since 1949 and that the death rate based on miles traveled is the lowest in history. But technologies such as active safety systems and advanced air bags are being offset by auto safety’s newest enemy: distracted drivers using electronic devices behind the wheel.

“We lost over 3,000 in 2010 to distraction-related crashes,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland says. “It’s a heightened risk to the public, and it’s growing exponentially.”

Some of the statistics cited in the story:

1. In 1950, there were 7.2 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. In 2010, the rate is 1.1. While Americans might be driving more on average today than in 1950 (I couldn’t find figures on this), the fatalities while driving has dropped nearly sevenfold.

2. Here is what causes traffic fatalities: 32% killed by drunk driving, 31% by speeding, 16% by distraction, and 11% by bad weather. It is interesting that much of the current debate about making driving safer deals with cell phones and distractions (see a recent article from the Chicago Tribune about new efforts in Illinois) while it is the third biggest threat. Perhaps policymakers could argue that getting rid of distractions if the cheapest or easier route compared to dealing with the first two issues.

3. According to this CDC report, there were 36,216 deaths in 2009 in motor vehicle accidents for a death rate of 11.8 per 100,000 Americans.

Americans seem willing to accept some risk in driving and generally welcome efforts to make cars safer. And the numbers have gone down quite a bit since 1950: driving is safer. At the same time, the fight over cell phones in cars is just heating up and we need more data to know whether cell phones are more distracting than other features found during driving (passengers, fiddling with the radio/GPS devices, talking to passengers, tiredness). In the end, this may be an odd costs-benefits tradeoff: restricting cell phone use may limit deaths but some will argue that too much is being given up (assuming that only others get in accidents while using cell phones?). Of course, one solution is to simply go to driverless cars but there are other hurdles to overcome there.

Mass transit in an age of self-driving cars

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Wired’s article about the nearing technical feasibility of self-driving cars makes several intriguing observations about the (possible) future of personal transportation:

Continue reading →

If you are for the Smart car, then you are against the McMansion

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Scott Goodson, the founder of an ad agency, argues that the new trend in advertising is selling a movement:

When the Smart car wanted to sell you a new model earlier this year, instead of talking about the usual advertising claims, like how great the car drives and how fuel efficient it is, Smart USA took a radically different approach. It came out with an idea of being against certain things. It asked you, the consumer, to think about what you were against in life, like excess stuff you buy but don’t need, McMansions with four car garages and of course gas guzzlers.

This is an unusual thing for a car company to do. It was not simply pushing polished cars in ads, it was saying something controversial. It was taking a stand against something. And it went beyond advertisements and set up a Facebook page. Why would advertising do this, why would the brand have this message?

Well, the Smart car, with the help of my agency StrawberryFrog in New York, was trying to spark a national movement against dumb mindless over-consumption. The thinking was: “Hey, if we could get millions of people excited about joining the fight against waste and dumb consumerism, it’s a great way to get them excited about the Smart car.”

This is part of a larger trend in advertising. To get people excited about a brand in this new social-media-Facebook-crazy world, you need to dump the old advertising playbook and spark a movement that people can get involved with.

Goodson suggests that it remains to be seen how consumers will respond. However, these sorts of ads are needed because “traditional ads” no longer work and advertisers need ways to reach consumers.

I’ve seen some ads like this recently. Such ads still target the identity of individual consumers but with a twist. First, they suggest that there are morally good and wrong choices to be made. The Smart car ad is suggesting that people in four-car McMansions are on the wrong side while virtuous Smart car owners are on another side. Second, they tie individual identity to a collective of like-minded consumers. While a cynic might suggest that such consumers are simply participating in the capitalistic movement, Smart car owners are told that their purchase makes them part of something bigger. If you put these two ideas together, consumers can still follow their individual tastes (however influenced they are by outside forces) but feel like they are participating in virtuous action with others.

Regarding the Smart car ads: what would happen if Toyota started advertising the Fit with the Smart car as its enemy/opposite movement? It seems rather easy to pick on McMansions and excessive consumption but what if it was a similar product?

In the long run, does this cheapen more traditional social movements that are looking to right social wrongs?

I wonder if advertisers would say these these movement-based ads are more effective with younger consumers, particularly emerging adults who might be yearning to be part of larger collectives.

Early signs: higher gas prices lead to less driving

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With gas prices moving upward, there are some signs that this is already changing driving behavior among Americans:

Drivers bought about 2.4 million fewer gallons for the week of April 1, a 3.6 percent drop from last year, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks the volume of gas sold at 140,000 service stations nationwide…

Before the decline, demand was increasing for two months. Some analysts had expected the trend to continue because the economic recovery was picking up, adding 216,000 jobs in March…

Instead, about 70 percent of the nation’s major gas-station chains say sales have fallen, according to a March survey by the Oil Price Information Service. More than half reported a drop of 3 percent or more — the sharpest since the summer of 2008, when gas soared past $4 a gallon. Now it’s creeping toward $4 again…

The decline is somewhat puzzling because Americans typically curb their driving only as a last resort, after sacrificing other forms of discretionary spending, like shopping for new clothes, or going to movies, concerts and restaurants.

Economists and others have been talking about this for a while: what exactly is the price point of a gallon of gasoline where Americans might drastically change their transportation patterns? In this earlier post, I briefly discussed the claim that the Obama administration actually wants higher gas prices as this would lead to greener transportation choices such as mass transit or bicycling or car pooling (or other options).

But if gasoline prices stayed relatively high (so they don’t really go down like they have after some of the temporary spikes in recent years – see the weekly average in the US going back to 1990 here or a graph showing prices going back to the mid 1970s here), it might lead to all sorts of changes. This could include everything from buying smaller cars (as the story above suggests is happening) to more Amtrak riders to longer semi trailers to rethinking patterns of sprawl.