Shelly Palmer's prediction that "before 2030, if you are under the age of 25 or over the age of 70, you are going to need a special permit to manually drive a car" is fatuous. Palmer apparently believes that the age of drivers correlate with higher level driving skills - this is fatuous. Driver skills improve by way of the learning curve. 15-18 year olds are less skilled drivers than older drivers because they have less experience, but they learn faster and retain the skills they earn by doing than older beginning drivers. If you delay allowing drivers to drive until they are 25 or more years old, these drivers must still go through the learning curve to gain skills, but as they are older, these skills are harder to acquire and take longer to master - just think about those older drivers you see from countries without a driving culture - their driving skills are much lower - frankly, terminally lower - than drivers who learn to drive as teenagers. Palmer also under estimates the fact that the USA has a very strong car culture, associated with freedom, and other American values such as self-reliance. State legislatures are not going to just roll over and attack America's car culture. Nor would it make sense to do so.
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Can Self-Driving Cars Ever Really Be Safe?
Shelly Palmer's prediction that "before 2030, if you are under the age of 25 or over the age of 70, you are going to need a special permit to manually drive a car" is fatuous. Palmer apparently believes that the age of drivers correlate with higher level driving skills - this is fatuous. Driver skills improve by way of the learning curve. 15-18 year olds are less skilled drivers than older drivers because they have less experience, but they learn faster and retain the skills they earn by doing than older beginning drivers. If you delay allowing drivers to drive until they are 25 or more years old, these drivers must still go through the learning curve to gain skills, but as they are older, these skills are harder to acquire and take longer to master - just think about those older drivers you see from countries without a driving culture - their driving skills are much lower - frankly, terminally lower - than drivers who learn to drive as teenagers. Palmer also under estimates the fact that the USA has a very strong car culture, associated with freedom, and other American values such as self-reliance. State legislatures are not going to just roll over and attack America's car culture. Nor would it make sense to do so.