Towns and Cities across the country may well be blind sided by the ruinous crashes caused by self driving cars; as the automatons begin to dominate motor ways, their collective adherence to the laws will lay waste to municipal budgets across the land. Local and state governments across the United States use traffic enforcement to significantly bolster their budgets, a practice which will be forcibly phased out (at least in it’s current form) by the adoption of driverless cars that never speed.
As technology continues to disrupt the transportation model we have known for these last few decades, the systems which grew around them are undoubtedly going to be shaken. Gas stations, rest stops, trucking companies, and delivery services are just a few examples of business models which will be significantly impacted by the future of transportation; but what about our governments. The system of traffic enforcement has drawn questions before, a conversation somewhat recently revitalized by traffic cameras and their legality; but with a looming loss of lucrative law enforcement how will we cope with the lost income?
So how much money do cities make from traffic violations? Well that depends from city to city, but in the past some small towns have seen over 60% of their budget coming from traffic violations, and even Washington DC collects around 200 million dollars a year through traffic citations; accounting for over 2% of the capitals budget in 2014, or enough money to upset the Washington Post. With the actual funding going to everything and anything from roads, to schools, police, and firefighters; the incomes are allocated differently in each city and town often with some portion being handed over to the state.
The lengths to which some cities will go to bolster this income often puts the government at odds with it’s citizens. Parking signs are a notorious example of governments misbehaving, creating intentionally confusing signage to generate more fines. So the losses will be offset; but how: by the decreased need to replace and repair public property damaged by motorists, and potentially by new taxes and laws which could rely on the accurate travel logs kept by autonomous vehicles to levy fines based on anything from distance or time traveled to the number of passengers in the car? Additional capital will be saved through the elimination of high-paying and no longer necessary positions in traffic regulation and enforcement, streamlining in the insurance industry, reduced need for oversight and Traffic Court, and while these may offset the lost income for states and large cities, many smaller towns that built their budgets on the backs of speeders will have little to offset the dwindling success of their speed-traps.
The issue of automated vehicles is only a microcosm of the issues our society faces as we embrace the ever accelerating rate of change that has become associated with technology. As the landscape of modern life continues to shift we will need to be vigilant in the protection of our rights, lest we fall victim to the ambition of others. Demanding that we lend our voices to the advocacy and defense of reason so that it may survive.
The Life Programmable 