Driverless Cars & The Impact On Municipal Revenues: I mentioned in yesterdays’ blog posting that there was a cool article in the New York Time on the evolution of driverless cars and today the author of that article – Nick Bilton – offers another article that discusses how driverless smart car technology will greatly decrease the number of traffic and parking tickets issued in cities and how, correspondingly, this will greatly decrease municipal revenue for big cities. Bilton notes that in Washington, D.C. on average that “six parking tickets are issued every minute of a normal workday. That is about 5,300 tickets on each of those days. Those slips of paper have added up to $80 million in parking fines a year;” – Wow! $80 million a year is quite a big source of income! No doubt municipalities will find new ways to generate more revenue for their cities when driverless smart cars become mainstream items– but I find the article interesting because I honestly had no idea that parking and traffic tickets generated that much revenue and because I can see a day coming when some people that don’t drive a great deal won’t necessarily need a car.
Imagine if in our area – Corning, NY (population about 10,000) we could summon a driverless car whenever we needed one to take us to work, home again, to the grocery store or the mall and we might not have to make car payments or pay for auto insurance or auto maintained because we might share these cars with other members of our local community
Most people don’t spend hours a day driving – some people do of course have a long commute and for them it is another story – but many people live and work within the same town and if they could quickly and easily get around their local region then maybe we could share cars, cut down on pollution and cut our cost of living by eliminating having to pay for and maintain a car.
Granted car enthusiasts who love to drive might just want to own their own cars anyway – I’m betting they will – but for some people having access to community owned self- driving (and no doubt at some point self-cleaning) smart cars will increase they ability to get around town and allow them to keep a few extra dollars in their budgets.
Here’s a link to the Bilton article titled “The Money Side of Driverless Cars”
Apple Offers Free Apps As The App Store Turns 5: Apple’s App Store has just turned 5 and to celebrate they are offering some apps for free for a limited time. There is a section in the store titled “5 Years of the App Store” and the free apps include games like “Infinity Blade II,” and “Tiny Wings HD” and other apps like “How to Cook Everything” and “Traktor DJ.” So if you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch you might want to check out the free apps!
Here’s a link to a Verge article on the subject titled “Top iOS apps and games go free ahead of App Store’s fifth anniversary:”
Have a great day!
Linda R.
References
Bilton, Nick. (2013, July 9). The Money Side of Driverless Cars. New York Times. Online. Accessed July 9, 2013. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/the-end-of-parking-tickets-drivers-and-car-insurance/?ref=technology
Byford, Sam. (2013, July 8). Top iOS apps and games go free ahead of App Store’s fifth anniversary. The Verge. Online. Accessed July 9, 2013. http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/8/4502810/ios-apps-and-games-go-free-five-years-after-app-store-launched
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