I was watching a motovlog this morning that claims millennials are ruining motorcycling. His contention is that because millennials are sitting in Starbucks texting, they don't appreciate the road or the call to it. I think there is a lot of truth to this. I'll try to not be offensive but millennials just don't seem to value mechanical things, being outdoors or the DIY spirit that is an essential part of the sport of motorcycling.
But there are bigger threats to our sport than just a shrinking audience. I was reading an article that said completely autonomous cars are only 5 years away. The author postulates that young people won't even bother to learn to drive in 8 years because the car will do that for them. Even worse, people may not even bother to own transportation. All travel will be Uber-like. Just call a car on your phone and one will come for you, no driver, waiting for your command.
Imagine Ford, GM and Honda produce and run linked, autonomous transportation modules. They rent them to passengers by the ride through automatic billing through your phone. These transportation modules would move at 100+ miles an hour on main routes and will de-link from the high speed trains to slow down for your stop. Gone will be traffic, accidents, and all this will be electric powered. This will be undoubtedly more efficient but what we will lose is the personal connection to getting from place to place. Why own a car is a computer is going to drive it?
Once autonomous vehicles become ubiquitous, human piloted vehicles will be dangerous. Automated vehicles will be moving in a perfectly choreographed, crash-free dance at some very high speeds (100 mph, more at times). Imagine mixing human piloted vehicles in that chaos? Yes, autonomous vehicles could be equally skilled at avoiding vehicles not a part of the "whole", but more likely we'll see human piloted cars relegated to specific less traveled roads and eventually to "driven vehicle reserves".
Sound like science fiction? I was talking to a friend and he said: "It will take them years just to develop the technology for all that stuff, I don't see any of that happening and time soon." What people don't realize is this has been happening for 25+ years. Microsoft, Google & Apple all have functional autonomous vehicle prototypes. Virginia Tech has been running autonomous vehicles around Blacksburg, VA for years, and state legislatures around the country are changing laws to allow driverless cars.
If the technology exists and it's more efficient, greener, and safer, what's holding things up? People will have to give up their cars and motorcycles to implement fully automated systems. Unfortunately I think many millennials let this defining part of American history go without a second thought.
)and don't ever see myself not ridin'.
