25 August 2016 8:41 am / Road Trip Drivers Buy a Car Finance a Car

How Your Kids Commute Won't Look Anything Like Today's

Life for many people these days revolves around a commute. It's just something you have to accept as a contributing member of society. Sorry. But it's true. Work is found in cities, getting to said work means lining up behind other commuters in the collective struggle that is usually laced with boredom, nerves, bad driving, and angry honking. 

And while getting from A to B has become much easier and tolerable over the last decade (Google Maps, interactive technology that reacts to traffic delays, and Spotify, anyone?), the journey itself still brings to mind groaning and frustration.

To be blunt: the commute to and from work is the bane of our existence, especially if you’re driving. And until technology perfects the self-driving car and we can all sleep on our way to work, it’s likely that you’re going to continue hating your life, wondering why you don't live closer to work, and pulling at your hair for the next foreseeable 20 years.

That being said, with technology advancing as quickly as it is, what your commute looks like now isn’t what your children’s commute will look like 20 years down the line.

Which means that in 20 years, you’re going to be like your grandpa: complaining about walking to school uphill, in the snow. Except replace walking to school with driving to work, uphill with car, and in the snow with hour commute. Because that’s the average time a day British Columbian’s in major cities spend commuting to and from work.

So if driverless car futures can bring the next generation less of a desire to bang our head against the steering wheel, we’ll take it.

Because driving demands our complete and absolute concentration. Distractions for driver’s ranges from texting, to phone calls, to hands free phone calls to rubber necking when you see a dog. We’re all only human. We can’t stop ourselves from dog envy. And the reality is: we’re going to be distracted and make mistakes and they may or may not lead to accidents, near misses, or tickets.

An increase in self-driving cars means that any time spent commuting is now open to either getting more work done or catching up on some last minute Z’s. And with more driverless cars on the road, there eliminates a need for everyone to have a car to take them to work, pay incredibly high parking fees, and get behind the wheel trying to tame their road rage.

And with less congestion on the road, more road efficiency means a reduction in commuting time. Driverless cars also mean you won’t likely be the only person in the car, which cuts the cost of your commute. Think of it as digital age car-pooling. A dispatching algorithm will locate other people with similar pick up and drop off locations, and then route accordingly. Not to mention, it minimizes the human footprint by cutting back on carbon and fuel emissions. A cut in your commute time and karma points? Win.

As we progress into the future of technology, it’s becoming clear that what we’ve come to know and hate for our commute will be vastly different for our children as we grow and evolve with technology. And honestly? We’re okay with that. We’re just a touch miffed that they’ll never know the pain that is only having radio stations.

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