From New York Times opinion, I'm Ross Douthat. And this is interesting times.

It feels like we've been hearing about self-driving cars for a long time. But now they're really here, ferrying people to work and school and nightlife from Los Angeles to Nashville,

and poised to spread to just about every big city

in America.

My guest this week is very optimistic about a future where the cars take over.

He writes about self-driving automobiles and transportation policy on his substack, changing

lanes, and he's the co-author of a recent book with the

stark title, The End of Driving. We talked about the potential benefits of this transformation.

And as someone who kind of loves the open road, I pressed him on what's lost, in freedom and mastery,

and the very birthright of Americans. if we don't have to be in the driver's seat anymore.

Andrew Miller, welcome to interesting times.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

So I want you to start by giving me a sales pitch for self-driving cars.

Explain why people might welcome them.

What would be good about a self-driving future?

So we can approach this from the micro or the macro level.

At the macro level, 40,000 Americans die every year in road incidents. And that is only those who die. It excludes those who suffer life-altering

injuries. None of those need to happen. And the vast, vast majority of those are caused by driver error. So at scale,

the more automated driving there is, the safer the roads are, the safer Americans are,

the safer anyone who uses the roads are. But at a micro level, not just safety,

driving is an immense consumer of people's attention. They have to give,

or they should give their full attention to the road. In theory, yes. That's the goal. That's the

...