[brc]

Horses were more dangerous than cars, but you're still allowed to ride horses on the road. A total ban on manual driving is just not feasible in a democratic country. I agree that it's possible some roads would be automatic-only, but you're not going to get a ban on cars being driven by people.

You would need just as many robotic cars as you would current taxis. The demand shape isn't going to change just because you remove the driver. Yes, parking and other things will improve but it's going to be a small improvement, not an order-of-magnitude jump.

[danssig]

>Horses were more dangerous than cars, but you're still allowed to ride horses on the road.

They may have been at some point, but that hasn't been the case for some time.

>A total ban on manual driving is just not feasible in a democratic country.

I disagree. Maybe not this generation, but supporting manual driving makes the whole system less stable unless you make a road just for them, which is really expensive.

>You would need just as many robotic cars as you would current taxis.

I don't believe this is the case. I see taxis sitting empty for hours. In that time one taxi could have made several short trips. I'm certain that a computer calculating routes, etc., could manage to get the same work done as is being done now with less resources. That's why we made them, after all.