"Automation will drastically reduce police and city budgets"

File under: Things I had not thought about.
From FounderPanel's FounderBlog:

Monday, September 30th

Fines are a big business for many cities and small towns – in 2016, New York City generated approximately 933 million dollars in fines, mostly from simple issues : parking, speeding and red light violations, but also for things like littering and making excessive noise [1]. This is happening in small towns too – in Louisiana, the number of towns and small cities that generate at least half of their revenue through fines rose from 15 in 2007 to 25 in 2018 [2].

Towns like these need to pay attention to automation and self-driving cars because we will likely experience a series of innovations that will make it difficult to generate revenue through traffic fines. Some of the towns will figure out how to adapt, others probably won’t – but the entire business model will be disrupted (which means there’s an imminent opportunity for future founders).

If we get to a point where people are allowed to be intoxicated while using a fully autonomous vehicle, there will be no more DUIs. If automated vehicles can have fully tinted windows, obtaining probable cause for pulling over a vehicle would be nearly impossible. Eventually, police will only even pay attention to traditional cars – something that will make the transition happen even faster – nobody wants to be pulled over and get a ticket (or worse). I couldn’t find any figures, but it seems obvious that a large number of non-traffic-related charges end up stemming from a simple traffic stop for speeding.

There’s also automation of law enforcement itself – it’s been around for decades. Red light cameras are currently operational in places like Washingon DC and other major cities. On the other hand, some cities have actually removed their red light cameras because multiple studies have found the bulky cameras actually cause certain accidents to increase [3]. Despite the existence, the size of police forces in the US have been increasing since 2013 [4] (after recovering from a 5 year dip starting in 2008, presumably recession-related)....

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And for Mr. Levine: Look Matt, four footnotes!!