For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am an attorney who derives a fair amount of my practice from drunk driving cases.  That being said, there has been a noticeable downturn in drunk driving work since the advent of Uber.  On a positive note, Uber has gotten me home safe and sound on a number of occasions when I was in no shape to drive and I applaud Uber and what it has done to decrease the prevalence of drunk  drivers on the roadways.  In addition, I “left” my wallet in my uber ride on the last night of bowling league and spent the entire next day without a phone.  Having no phone isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but my phone case is actually a glorified wallet that holds all of my access cards, debit card, and Id’s.  I actually enjoyed having no phone for a day and it was quite refreshing to know that I couldn’t get in touch with anyone and no one could get in touch with me.  It was like going back in a time capsule to the days where the only way to reach someone was through a landline or a pay phone.  I decided not to cancel my personal debit card or firm card because I had a good feeling uber was going to come through for me.

Sure enough, at about 6pm the following day my Uber driver, who I didn’t even recognize when he showed up to drop my wallet off, called Shirley to let her know he had my phone and indicated he could swing by to drop it off.  Upon his arrival I ran out and embraced him, picking him up in my arms, telling him he was the most amazing uber driver ever.  OK, I didn’t exactly do that, but I did give him $50 for his troubles and openly wept as I clutched my phone/wallet.  “I will never do that to you again phone/wallet, did he treat you ok?  I still love you just as much as I have always loved you, daddy just needs to let loose every once in a while, but next time he’s only going to have cash with him when he feels like letting loose.  Did you miss me?  I missed you!”

So, Uber is terrific right?  For now it is, truly an amazing concept that has changed the way people get from point A to point B intoxicated.   In addition, it allows for both parities in a relationship to go imbibe as much alcohol as they want since there is no need for one of them to be the designated driver.  But you know what would be even better than Uber?  Not needing a driver at all.  That’s right we are not far away from a time and place where cars are able to operate without drivers.  In the not too distant past this concept seemed like complete science fiction, but now it’s entirely possible my kids, age 3 and 5 will never need to learn how to drive.   I remember attending driver’s education at Byron Center High School and sitting through movie’s where they would try to scare the shit out of you so that you would have no choice but to be a safe driver out of pure fear. (and that was way before the dangers of texting and driving, I can’t even begin to imagine how horrifying current driver’s ed movies are)  On top of that there was hours of driving and it wasn’t just you and the instructor, they’d pack a couple other pimply faced dipshits in the car as well and you would have to ride in the back watching your life flash before your eyes and hoping the brake on the instructor’s side of the car was fully functional.  One time I actually tried a left turn into on coming traffic at a blinking red left turn light, the instructor practically stood on the brake.

Imagine getting your first car and it’s self driven?  Kind of seems like it would take the fun out of driving if you don’t actually get to drive the car.  I suppose they are going to have to make people get their rider’s license at some point.  Rider’s training where you just have to learn how to effectively ride in a self driven car.  Sign me up to run the rider’s training school, seems like one of the best gigs ever, and probably about as unnecessary as the greeters at Meijer stores.  I’m sorry but Meijer is such an amazing place you could have someone telling me at the door to get the fuck out of there and it wouldn’t deter me one bit, why do I need some old person creeping me out as they welcome me into the store?  This issue of a rider’s license does raise a question, at what age are kids able to ride by themselves?  When they no longer need a booster seat?  When they are able to order through a drive through?  I can just imagine if Tod and Ted are rocking their own self driving car after getting out of their booster seats. “Tod let’s go through the Culver’s drive thru again, I want to try their flavor of the week this time.”

“No, they already told us ten consecutive time’s through is the limit, if  we go for 11 we may end up having to eat Frosty’s for the rest of the week.  I say we head over to Toy’s R Us there is some new Ninja Turtle toys that are suppose to be coming out today in anticipation of their new movie, one of the new action figures look just like Megan Fox, and I heard it’s anatomically correct.”

Imagine never having to bring your kid’s anywhere, your self driving car does all the work.  Obviously they would have to reach a certain age first, but hell you would never see your kids if they had their own car that drove itself.  The mall, the movies, swimming  lessons, soccer, being a parent suddenly doesn’t sound manageable if you aren’t carting their ungrateful asses all over the place while they turn your car into a pig sty.

Are these new cars going to have something akin to parental controls on them for wives to keep their husbands away from specific businesses and husbands to do the same with their wives?  Damn it!  Why won’t this thing let me go to Sensations, I love their buffet.  Imagine if women could program the car to stay at least five miles away from all golf courses on the weekends?  Likewise, men being able to keep their wive’s vehicles from going with in walking distance of a Target could be just what the doctor ordered for some couples.  Or, in the alternative, if your wife (or I guess husband, but women seem much less concerned about outward appearances) seems to be putting on a few too many lb’s you program her vehicle to take her to the gym instead of the evening dining out she had planned with her friends.

Here are just a few things self driving cars could eliminate, auto insurance and the douche bags who sell insurance as well as any commercial with Flo in them, drunk driving, road rage, The Bernstein advantage (They claim to be Michigan’s first family of law, which is complete bullshit, Shirley and I should be Michigan’s first family of law) due to the fact that the majority of their cases are auto injury cases, traffic cops, and gridlock.  However, I do wonder how construction zones would work.  How does the car know when to merge?  Wouldn’t it be maddening to be in a vehicle that merged two miles before it was absolutely necessary and there was nothing you could do about it?   Granted, the trade off would be that you wouldn’t have to watch the random car go about a mile further then they should only to have some softy let them merge into traffic.  “What are you doing!  Don’t let him in.”  Honestly, I fantasize about a scenario where someone who does that is never allowed in to merge and they are stuck on the outside looking in for hours.  People who merge at the last minute, regardless of their religious affiliation,  are going to hell right?

The reality is that the self driven car will bring a lot of good into the world and probably eradicate a lot of the bad, but it’s biggest achievement will probably have to do with race and gender relations.  With the self driving car in play white males in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s will no longer be the only good driver’s on the road, we will all be equal.  Oh well, I’m sure there is plenty more I could write about when it comes to the self driven car, but I have to get out of here so I can beat rush hour traffic.