One major reason that we won't get "self-driving" cars in the near future,
is that, if they do prove to be safe and practical for delivering people and goods to destinations, there will be major losses of jobs, and some industries will either be downsized or disappear altogether.
If a car can drive itself, then the police and highway patrol personnel will have one less job to perform, and that could mean hundreds of thousand of jobs lost across the nation, and millions more around the world.
Then there is the insurance industry, which, if a self-driven car proves to be safer than a car-with-human-driver, then, the insurance for that vehicle will have to be cut tremendously or cut altogether, which again means that, there will be many thousands of jobs around the country, and millions around the world, that will have been lost in the auto insurance industry.
Also, looking even further into the future, self-driving cars will replace the need to purchase one's own automobile, since, all that needs to be done is to make a request for transportation from point-A to point-B, and a self-driving car will be automatically dispatched to your front door. Car sales and even car production, would be cut, tremendously, since, there would no longer be a need for people to have their own personal vehicle sitting in their garage ready for deployment when one needs it. You will just be able to dial for a vehicle ahead of time, and, voila!, you have transportation waiting for you. It will be like personal limousine service, with no limousine driver.
Then, there is the many other millions of jobs lost because the taxi and limousine services around the world wouldn't be needed anymore. Think of all those middle-eastern folks in NYC who won't be needed anymore to drive people around NY City anymore. Oh, the humanity!
All of those positives would be major negatives to those who would, inevitably, complain about the automation of transportation.
The remaining jobs in the transportation sector will be, those manufacturing the self-driving vehicles, and those that will own and maintain those vehicles. But, even there, the manufacturers and owners could be one and the same.
Even further into the future, when people become more comfortable with "self-piloting" airplanes, there won't we pilots or pilots' unions or concerns about training.
It could be a much better world, but, government will step in to regulate and legislate that kind of future from becoming reality.
