No One at the Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future

by Samuel I. Schwartz, Karen Kelly Narrated by Gregory Abbey

Overview

The country's leading transport expert describes how the driverless vehicle revolution will transform highways, cities, workplaces and laws not just here, but across the globe.

Our time at the wheel is done. Driving will become illegal, as human drivers will be demonstrably more dangerous than cars that pilot themselves. Is this an impossible future, or a revolution just around the corner?

Sam Schwartz, America's most celebrated transportation guru, describes in this book the revolution in self-driving cars. The ramifications will be dramatic, and the transition will be far from seamless. It will overturn the job market for the one in seven Americans who work in the trucking industry. It will cause us to grapple with new ethical dilemmas-if a car will hit a person or a building, endangering the lives of its passengers, who will decide what it does? It will further erode our privacy, since the vehicle can relay our location at any moment. And, like every other computer-controlled device, it can be vulnerable to hacking.

Right now, every major car maker here and abroad is working on bringing autonomous vehicles to consumers. The fleets are getting ready to roll and nothing will ever be the same, and this book shows us what the future has in store.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Matthew DeBord

[Schwartz] knows everything about how cars and people don't get along, having been on the front lines. This book—written in an earnest, conversational style—is his attempt to grapple with a fresh threat that's appeared after decades of progress. Futurists may have promised us flying cars, but what we're going to get instead are driverless ones, and Schwartz's is the first comprehensive analysis of what that will mean on the ground. Most likely, there will be far fewer fatalities…But cars that can drive themselves will bring with them other knotty societal problems…I'm someone who enthusiastically drives cars for a living and who, without reservation, admits that the automobile has brought menace and avoidable carnage right along with the freedom to set out on the open road. We should have better thought it through the last time around. If we heed [Schwartz] and this valuable, humane book as we move toward a future in which we largely surrender the wheel, we can avoid messing up again.

Publishers Weekly

★ 09/10/2018
The bold opening prediction that autonomous vehicles, or AVs, will be the “most disruptive technology... since the advent of the motorcar” is amply and insightfully supported by Schwartz (Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars), former New York City traffic commissioner and the New York Daily News’s “Gridlock Sam” columnist. He clearly illuminates both the promise and the peril of driverless vehicles, which will affect “family and work life, business, politics, ethics, the environment, travel, health, and yes, our happiness.” Before the expected expansion of the AV industry in the coming decades into a “multitrillion-dollar business—bigger than Amazon and Walmart combined as they exist today,” Schwartz hopes that both policymakers and average citizens will think carefully; while AVs could make streets safer, they could also create an even more sedentary and unhealthy society. He contextualizes the current transportation revolution through a history of the rise and impact of motor vehicles, noting that commercial interests led to changes that defaulted in favor of the car and its driver, rather than the pedestrian, a history that he hopes won’t be repeated with AVs. This is an essential treatise on a technology whose development and regulation will have an impact on “the future health of people, economies, cities, and more.” (Nov.)

From the Publisher

""[Schwartz] knows everything about how cars and people don't get along, having been on the front lines. This book - written in an earnest, conversational style - is his attempt to grapple with a fresh threat that's appeared after decades of progress.... If we heed Gridlock Sam and this valuable, humane book as we move toward a future in which we largely surrender the wheel, we can avoid messing up again."—New York Times Book Review

"This is an essential treatise on a technology whose development and regulation will have an impact on 'the future health of people, economies, cities, and more."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"It's safe to say that few people on the planet know more about guiding vehicles from place to place than Schwartz, an engineer who served as New York City's traffic commissioner for years...An invigorating bit of future-trend prognosticating, generally positive, if warning direly of global gridlock if trends continue. Urban planners, architects, and transportation activists will definitely want to take note."—Kirkus

"Sam Schwartz does a great job of seeing the systems implications to the introduction of autonomous vehicles. No One at the Wheel helps us imagine a world with augmented driving experiences, and how this technology will change transportation as we know it."—James P. Hackett, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company

"Cities need fewer futurists to marvel about transportation technology and more street sages like Sam Schwartz to keep sight of our urban fundamentals. No One at the Wheel tells us how to take cities off of autopilot and shape the driverless future we want to see on our streets."—Janette Sadik-Khan, author of Street Fight and former Commissioner of the New York CityDepartment of Transportation

"This is an excellent book. Sam Schwartz is a giant who has spent a career doing all he can to deliver transportation services that improve the quality of lives. A must-read!"—Alain Kornhauser, host of SmartDriving Cars and professor at Princeton University

"No One At The Wheel gives a balanced primer on the good, the bad and the ugly potential for autonomous vehicles, but with a dose of critical history and great storytelling. Read this book if you want to shape the future vs. let it happen to you."—Gabe Klein, author of Start-UpCity, co-founder of CityFi, and formerCommissioner of the Chicago and Washington DC Departments of Transportation

"No One at the Wheel is a must read for anyone in business, public policy, education or planning to live in the future. Sam is simply brilliant!"
—Jim Simpson, transportationentrepreneur and former Transportation Administrator at the United StatesDepartment of Transportation

Kirkus Reviews

2018-09-02

"In just a few years, all cars will be partially or fully autonomous." Are we hapless drivers ready?

It's safe to say that few people on the planet know more about guiding vehicles from place to place than Schwartz, an engineer who served as New York City's traffic commissioner for years. In this book, which closely follows the city government's decision to rein in Uber and Lyft drivers, the author emerges as a not-entirely-uncritical advocate of autonomous vehicles, which promise to do all kinds of good things for crowded roadways, with a lot of ifs attached—e.g., if governments everywhere "ensure that people are privileged over cars, and that in the rush to innovate, unsafe or untested vehicles are not allowed to come on the market." The author notes that Uber employs "a lobbying troop that is larger than Walmart's" and spends millions on pressing its case. Given that he believes Uber and other disruptive transportation companies will continue to do so given the vast—potentially trillions of dollars—amount of money involved, cars may very well be privileged over people. For all that, Schwartz advocates moving forward with plans to introduce AVs into the transportation mix along with other steps to discourage individual ownership of vehicles, at least in cities—for, as he also notes, the vast number of vehicle trips are taken with single occupants going to places no more than a mile from home, trips that can easily be accommodated by other forms of transportation. The author contrasts some of the amazingly pedestrian-unfriendly cities of today (Athens, Greece, anyone?) with visions for a future where cars are kept at a safe distance from walkers and cyclists—but where cars, thus carefully limited and regulated, still hold a place in a vibrant suite of transportation options.

An invigorating bit of future-trend prognosticating, generally positive, if warning direly of global gridlock if trends continue. Urban planners, architects, and transportation activists will definitely want to take note.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170179169
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	11/20/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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