There is a good chance, after the U.S. returns to having an actual government, that today’s cars will eventually be replaced by self-driving cars. Once there are no longer any human drivers on the road, transportation will change in many ways.
For one thing, the absence of human drivers will mean that deaths from automobile accidents will dramatically plummet. Countless human lives will no longer be needlessly lost each year.
But another consequence will be that cars will most likely become a kind of utility — a highly granular cousin to buses. It might no long make economic sense to own a car, if you can simply call one up whenever you want.
And that means home garages — currently a large part of the footprint of many houses — will no longer serve their current function. So what will happen to those garages?
Will they all be converted into storage rooms? And if so, will future generations eventually forget that those storage rooms ever served any other purpose?
A century from now, I can imagine a history teacher trying to explain to children the original use of that odd storage room attached to their house. And those children might not believe it. How could something which sounds so crazy actually be true?
We have such a storage room! 🙂 We don’t own a car, but we use 5 bikes and a bike trailer. They use up a big part of the space … For our kid, the room doesn’t seem odd. She doesn’t seem to question why our bikes have such a sturdy home. It’s just the way she knows things to be.
You are already living in the future!