My kids have a lot of after school activities which my wife spends hours a day bringing them to and fro, even when they are more than capable of doing the activity entirely independently and don’t expect to be watched by a parent during the activity.

For some reason it’s deemed “not appropriate” for them to Uber to and fro. Occasionally there will be parents who we can carpool with, but almost always it ends up being a huge time suck to drive them, wait around, and then bring them back.

I think it’s not so much an issue of them being in a car alone, it’s the random stranger driving them that makes it hard for a, e.g. 10-16 year old to get around on their own if they can’t walk, bike, or take public transit.

So my guess is that a self-driving car will be more acceptable to bring kids around the suburbs to all their after-school activities. Which is a massive productivity boost for the parents, basically freeing up an entire human for 4 hours a day.

Man I would love that.

I will note that at least in urban areas, I see kids ubered to school on odd days ... mostly at poorer communities where parents have to work on a random day and still need to get their kids to school. But yeah in the better off suburbs I don't see it happen ever... then again there is more carpooling for those.

There are actually some non uber specialty services out there that claim to do background checks, have extra training, and etc that focus on moving kids or even vulnerable adults around. I don't know how widespread those are.

If my kids could just show up at the door that would save me hours every week.

It's not uncommon for wealthier families here in Guadalajara to have their 13-year-old daughter Uber around.

We sure do like our coddling in the USA, though, where it's even safer.

An example of someone writing about the problem: https://www.thecoddling.com/ -- Makes a good case how instilling these ideas in our youth that everyone is out to get them comes back to bite them (and us all) in the ass as they enter adulthood.

An example of an org trying to fix it: https://letgrow.org/

Of course, a self-driving car is even better than an Uber driver for various reasons, not the least because ape-driven vehicles aren't particularly safe.

I feel like choosing to uber or not is a big distance away from "coddling".

I think SDC's will definitely increase VMT (vehicle miles traveled). Think of the talking points...you can just lay back, have a snooze, and in 8 hours you'll be at your destination. This means a LOT less barrier to long-distance travel, a LOT less barrier for long commutes, and increased attractiveness of cheaper housing/communities that are farther out. If the main barrier to more driving is time/effort, then SDC's will greatly increase VMT.

I commuted by train for a year and it was 2 hours each way. Even being able to do whatever I wanted, the commute was absolutely soul crushing.

I wouldn't want that for my normal commute. However when visiting family it would be nice. "Hey car: start driving towards my in-laws" [sleep] "hey car, find me breakfast someplace" [eat] "hey car, find me something interesting to do" [learn about the swamp spirits] "Hey car, find me something else to do" [learn about railroad that used to run though this little town]. "hey car, find lunch" And so on throughout the day, before letting the car drive another 8 hours while I sleep and waking up in time for breakfast at my in-laws.

I agree. Removing the other people (i.e doing it in a car) helps make it bearable but spending X hr/day in a box commuting is not good for quality of life no matter how you cut it.

Yeah my commute is kinda long now. I work from home a lot but boy a desk in my car... would be pretty nice / get a lot done.

According to the some preliminary studies, yes, people will use self-driving cars for more road hours than existing models. Apparently a similar effect was visible as ridesharing services became popular.

https://jalopnik.com/zombie-miles-and-napa-weekends-how-a-we...

Self driving cars that see my kid waiting to cross the street and stop to let him cross would mean my kid rides the bus home. He is 6 - I don't trust his judgement crossing the busy street the bus runs on. I hate crossing it myself - I often get impatient after waiting 3 minutes with no break in the traffic and run for the left turn lane I(middle lane) to wait for the other direction...