Happy Monday dear readers!

Your humble blogger hopes your weekend was restful and rejuvenating, and that you’ve come back to California workers’ compensation with the vigor and will necessary to continue denying benefits.  In the meantime, I’d like to highlight a natural and timeless phenomenon occurring before our very eyes.  The California Public Utilities Commission is allowing Cruise to proceed with driverless taxis and offering passengers rides for a fee in San Francisco.  Although this is a limited test as to time and parts of San Francisco to be serviced, if this proceeds well we could see more and more of the same state-wide, if not nation-wide.

Of course, Sacramento is used to getting brownie points by championing the rights of UBER and Lyft drivers by putting the squeeze on their “employers” while at the same time pricing that labor out of the market and opening the door for more automation.  How much of California’s economy is reliant on drivers?  How much of that economy can we see replaced by self-driving cars?

If self-driving cars are successful, what can we expect to see as an impact in California’s workers’ comp system?  Fewer injuries, both specific and CTs, claimed by drivers, because, of course, there would be fewer workers in that field.

What can Californians in general expect if human drivers are successfully replaced with self-driving cars?  The same thing we see wherever automation is allowed to flourish: more consistent services at lower cost. 

Your humble blogger is cheering the trend towards automation on with both hands.  Now, who amongst my beloved readers will be brave enough to ride a driver-less taxi in San Francisco and report on the experience?

Straight on to Wednesday, dear readers!