Even autonomous vehicles will always have nonzero fatality rates. Letting them go 50mph will lead to more human deaths than capping them at 25.

lol, I hear people frame the self driving car discussion that way regularly, but it is just wrong. Noone is going to be making human driven vehicles illegal.

They may be more like classic cars than regular vehicles at some point, though.

Nah, you'll just see the insurance cost spike to the point where driving is a weekend activity for rich weirdos. Give it a generation and it will be as strange and morally suspect as smoking.

> it will be as strange and morally suspect as smoking.

You could have picked a better example. I see tons of young people smoke and wonder what the hell is wrong with them, whether or not they haven't been paying attention for the last 40 years and then I realize they didn't because they weren't there to begin with. So the tobacco industry can work their nasty charms on them with abandon because there are new potential suckers born every day.

Smoking is a weird analogy. I'd expect a better one to be something like "give it a generation and it will be as strange and morally suspect as a horse and buggy".

Or alternatively, maybe as strange as a motorcycle or vintage MG.

I wouldn't be surprised to see an increasing number of (express-type) roads or perhaps dedicated lanes where human drivers were not allowed on though, after self-driving capabilities become the norm. (yes I realise that's an assumption).

I think people underestimate the cultural impact that self-driving vehicles will have - imagine a whole generation or two after self-driving vehicles are generally available - how many people will bother learning to drive? I think it might become more of a job-specific skill than a general 'adult life' skill as it is now in most places.

First it will be like knowing how to drive a stick-shift. Then it'll be like owning a sports car. Then it'll be like owning a horse or a boat.

I think you are absolutely right about some limited circumstances that make them the only legal option. But the analogy that I keep making is to classic cars. A lot of them don't have the safety features that we expect today. It isn't uncommon for their owners to say things like "I'm only safe on roads that existed in 1960". It is obviously an exaggeration, but the point is that even today there are plenty of cars that are legal to operate but probably wouldn't be anyone's preference on a busy 70 MPH interstate.

At some point, human driven cars become novelties, just like that. There is no reason to ban them, but as you suggest, maybe there will be some HOV-like lanes where they don't really have access. Or even some time constraints (not during rush hour on some key roads, not in lower manhattan, etc).