Why autonomous driving cars and minivans are just shiny pennies

In light of the announcement this week that Google and Fiat Chrysler are teaming up to build 100 autonomous Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans, can we take a moment to reconsider the whole rush to autonomous driving in general?

Not for the Pacificas, mind you, or the ugly little Google cars, or even to pine for what are likely the billions being spent by automakers and technology companies such as Google and Apple chasing this technological dream.

You see, I don’t care about any of that, and I submit that, like a shiny penny, you shouldn’t either. In the whole picture of autonomous driving, those things are all chicken… well, let’s just call it chicken feed.

Nope. The strangely Orwellian race to fully autonomous driving -- which, frankly, seems to have developed a certain fait accompli of its own -- isn’t really about increased safety, though that is a promised side benefit.

It’s also not about getting grandma safely to her doctor’s appointments or even making my lengthy commute easier.

In fact, I don’t think it’s about cars at all.

I think it’s about trucks.

Or more specifically, it’s about the 3.5 million men and women driving trucks every day, whose average pay is about $40,000 a year, according to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Now, I could go into great detail about the impact that autonomous driving trucks would have on the U.S. economy, but I couldn’t do it justice compared to the job that writer Scott Santens did in this extensive piece a year ago. And he’s absolutely right. When this technology is perfected, likely within the next decade given the current pace, the economic impacts will be life-altering for every American -- and not in a good way.

Consider just one point he makes: the most widely held job among residents in 29 of the 50 states in 2014?

You guessed it: truck driver.

God help us all if that’s about to change.