And there’s the fundamental point that you’ve completely missed with your response. I said you also need to consider the non-economic reasonings why people do what they do and you countered that will a wholly economic argument which just doesn’t stack up in the real world.
If everyone only looked at the economic argument then your correct, no one would buy cars and public transport would be king but it just isn’t how peoples decision making works.
You also need to factor in the perceived benefit of owning your own vehicle, particularly if you can afford it, e.g. flexibility, piece of mind, not having to store car seats in your hall way and install them every time etc. Self driving cars may end up being cheaper but they are just objectively worse in every other metric.
For example, there’s only so many times where a person who can afford to own their own car is going put up with a driverless car turning up and it containing someone’s left over take away or bodily fluids before they think ‘**** it I’m just going to buy my own’.
Let’s be realistic, these cars will be unsupervised but that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to be people. There is a reason why regular taxis all have ‘leather’ seats and fully lined plastic mats and those are the ones that are supervised….
No I will agree with you there, it is the perceived freedom that will stop people changing but that tends to be the older generation.
There are already plans for their to be big car parks full of self drive cars all over the country that you just hire as and when you need them, More and more people arent even bothering learning to drive.
Only 3m of the 16 to 25 age group now hold driving licences compared with 3.42m in 2012 despite the number of young people increasing massively. Increases in the costs of owning and running a car has been a factor.
A Department for Transport survey in 2019 found that the most common reasons for 17 to 20-year-olds in England not trying to get on the road were the costs of learning to drive (41%), buying a car (31%) and insuring it (30%).
Fewer than one in five (19%) of respondents said they were not interested in driving, and 12% cited the availability of other forms of transport.
Like it or not the world is changing. Unlike me who couldnt wait to pass my test and get freedom at 17, youngsters of today arent bothered anymore. As Uber has taken off and public transport improved, the need has got less. Self drive cars will just speed up this trend.
Yes if you live in rural areas you will pretty much still need to own your own car but less so for other people.
And the old arent going to let go of their perceived freedom of owning their own car.
My parents are classic examples. they buy a new car every 3 years and do 3000 miles per annum and worse than that my dad insists on buying a diesel when the longest journey they ever do each year is 14 miles.
I have told them they would be better off getting a taxi every time but they say "what happens if they need the car in a hurry?"