I think it's more about when the market is still majority manual. 20% self driving might see premiums for manual cars go up significantly because manual drivers would have more at fault accidents per mile than before (assuming the same rate of accidents, but most accidents with a self driving car are the manual driver's fault).There will also be things like not having DWIs and even cheap parking (since the car can drive away and park) that'll net out for self driving. And feedback loops there- the same size police force only pulling over manual cars from a smaller and smaller pool.
myrmidon|1 year ago
This is a very shaky assumption in my view; more realistic would be (to me):
1) Overall accident rate reduction even for manual drivers
2) Reduced damage in accidents even for manual drivers
3) Slight increase in "at-fault" allocation toward manual drivers
It seems very likely to me that those would result in net favorable effects even for manual drivers.
I believe a lot of driving will move to full auto once viable, but not all of it because lots of people like to drive recreationally, and I simply don't see insurance rates for manual drivers spiking out of control-- just compare insurance pricing for less-safe vintage cars, which is also perfectly reasonable.