With Self-Driving Cars Coming, What Happens To Millions Of Jobs In The ‘Crash’ Economy?
The original article can be found on yahoo.com
If you’ve been paying attention to the buzz surrounding autonomous and self-driving vehicles over the past couple years, you’ve likely heard the arguments about whether they might one day take the wheel from us. While enthusiasts wring their hands over losing control, and others worry about security and privacy, advocates tout the potentially huge advantages of a fleet of vehicles which almost never crash.
A 2012 study by KPMG and the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) predicts that a self-driving fleet could eliminate 93 percent of crashes attributed to human error. The savings in lives, injuries, insurance claims, delays, lost productivity and more would be substantial (so much so that a few prognosticators have imagined a world where non self-driving cars would be banned in the name of public safety.)
But if the technologists, business-government interests, and early adopters pushing for autonomous driving are right, there’s one thing that’s been left out of the conversation: If cars and trucks don’t crash, what happens to the millions of jobs supported by driving today?
Call it the crash economy — not just because of how it’s grown, but where it may be heading.
All the studies popped out over the last couple of years have looked at the huge potential savings of reduced accidents, productivity improvements. But there is another set of consequences waiting for us depending on how autonomous vehicles roll out.
A recent study by Barclays analyst Brian Johnson, forecast a 40 percent drop in new-vehicle sales over the next 25 years. And if self-driving cars don’t crash as much, demand for body shops declines. It’s easy to start following that logic through many other lines of work:
- Emergency services/equipment
- Highway safety equipment
- Towing/recovery services/equipment
- Traffic enforcement services/equipment
- Used vehicles Compliance professionals/investigators
- Court system infrastructure/processing
- Lawyers/legal services
- Insurers/insurance Construction
The crash economy would certainly take a hit. But such displacement isn’t novel.
It’s been happening since the Industrial Revolution. One hundred years ago there was a lot of protesting about jobs for buggy manufacturers, horse-dung shovelers, blacksmiths. These jobs went away but they turned into other jobs.
What about new jobs that AVs might create? Few have supplied any specifics beyond increased demand for software/electronics products/services. AVs might be a boon to ventures linked to the sharing economy; someone will still have to load, say, self-driving delivery trucks. But the boon depends on where you sit.
AVs would still need maintenance. If we want the same number of vehicle-miles traveled, because we presumably have the same number of people doing the same amount of traveling, a smaller number of shared, autonomous cars are going to be working harder. They’ll wear out quicker and need to be replaced more frequently.
Even if AVs drive a lot of miles, their lack of crashes and electric power could mean a sharp drop in demand for mechanics. We asked Bill Davis, director of the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium (NAFTC) – which trains technicians in alternatively-powered vehicle maintenance – if electric vehicles require less maintenance than traditional gas/diesel cars? The answer is yes.
There’s already pushback against automated transportation threatening jobs. Earlier this month, London Underground workers staged a 24-hour shutdown in response to plans for autonomous/driverless night trains, causing city-wide chaos. Ironically, the strike prompted editorials in London newspapers calling for moving faster towards driverless trains.
As distasteful as the idea of relinquishing driving and the liberty it represents is, it may actually be harder to let go of the crash economy.
