(cross-posted from my Medium.com page)

One of the arguments made about autonomous vehicles, particularly in car-obsessed places like the U.S., is that a large group of people will never give up the “freedom” to drive themselves. They’ll have to pry the steering wheel from their cold, leather-driving-gloved, dead hands. That argument assumes that all or most other things about vehicle ownership remain static — that the cost of things like insurance and taxes will be the same between “self-drive” and autonomous.

Autonomous vehicles are simply an evolutionary step in two decades of technology adoption in the auto industry. What began setting a speed and taking your foot off the accelerator has morphed into vehicles that are always connected, that track every driver behavior (from speed to if the windshield wipers are on), and know spatial coordinates. The trick to autonomous vehicles is not the driving part — we’ve had that since the 1958 Imperial introduced cruise control — it’s replacing the senses of the driver and the resulting reactions to that sense-data.

The prototype autonomous vehicles from companies like Google are decked out in sensors of all kinds, from LiDAR to ultrasonic to detect close objects. They replace the eyes and ears of the driver with data fed to the onboard computer that then makes driving decisions. The results are impressive: autonomous vehicles have a 25% lower crash rate, a number that will only drop as the technology improves.

So why will surveillance lead to autonomous vehicle adoption? That may be too scary of a word but go back to the data collection that exists for “self-drive” cars today. The time between the ability of vehicles to collect data on speed, breaking, windshield wiper usage and its first appearance in a court case was very short. Data from the vehicle’s onboard computer and GPS is now routinely used in accident investigations, lawsuits, and insurance claims. Some insurance companies have begun offering a discount if drivers voluntarily provide that data to prove they don’t break traffic laws. The trend toward connectedness through Internet of Things means eventually all vehicles will not only capture that data but provide it remotely.

For governments, why bother with toll booth installations when the car can report what roads and what distance traveled. Certainly, that won’t happen overnight but how did RFID-based electronic toll devices get adopted? They were cheaper — much cheaper — than the alternative. Or, why have speed traps when the car can report the speed vs the posted (or safe speed given weather conditions at the time)? It’s red light cameras, version 2.0. All in the name of safety.

These changes won’t happen by edict, that’s much too sensitive politically today. But it’s easy to see how economic incentives will lead to the voluntary provisioning of the data. Over time, the few people who drive themselves will pay much higher rates of insurance. And with law enforcement, when we reach a point where vehicles report any traffic violations when we can’t speed down an open road, what’s the fun in driving anymore?