Driving to work I heard on the radio something about a flying car and it got me thinking. Which would you prefer being the common standard of travel? A car that drives itself with you in it or a flying car?

Personally, I want nothing to do with flying cars over my home. If you think worrying about a bird crapping on you is troubling, imagine having cars flying all over the place ruining the view of the sky. And if they collide, guess where they land?

I'll take a self driving car if that is what we all are riding in.

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Since I can't stand to ride in a vehicle without being at the helm.. I want nothing to do with a self driving car, not to mention that I see the code many others write and the ability to manipulate that code, I will pass.

The flying car bit.. we have knuckleheads commanding the cars upon the pavement of America.. do we really want to extend that to the sky? Didn't think so. That said.. I would embrace this medium of travel for long distances especially if we can do it at a quicker cleaner pace.

We are just starting to break out dependency upon oil.. we need to continue to push that initiative, so I would push for any mode of transportation that adopts that trend.. and if it is a method off the ground so be it. Regardless of the method.. I would vote for a cleaner cheaper method to personal transportation over the two in the OP.

Yeah.. I don't follow the constraints of the question well.

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Why not flaying AND autopilot?

I understand the scary bit -- I'm not likely to be coordinated enough to move in three dimensions at speed, and I expect a lot of others aren't either.

On the other hand, that third dimension also means a lot less congestion. Cars aren't just limited to the space of two dimensions, they're limited to a tiny fraction of those two because of the need to be on roads. But a flying car wouldn't be constrained either way.

In an area 1000' x 1000', you probably have room for, what, three 100' wide roads going each direction. That's a max of 600,000 square feet of pavement to fit any X number of vehicles. On the other hand, if you add the third dimension, now you have 1,000,000,000 cubic feet available.

Now if all those cars travelled at fighter jet speed, it would be a different story. But IMO if they could figure out how to make landings and takeoffs as safe as entering/exiting a freeway (that's probably where I'd focus my research for programming possibilities if I were in charge of such), then ... um, the sky's the limit :)

Of course it'll never happen in today's America -- we'd kill it by overregulation before it had a chance to start. At most, it'll be new toy for the rich and shameless who will be able to afford the regulation-bloated pricetags.

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