No one has ever accused me of being overly eager to adopt emerging technologies.

Our house came with an automated irrigation system, but we haven’t used it in years. I write on a word processor, of course, but I keep seven manual typewriters around. I still enjoy the old-fashioned thwack of keys against the platen. I understand that there is something on my phone called a Wallet, but a decades-old leather billfold resides in my pocket.

So when the prospect emerged of owning an automobile that drives itself, I was skeptical. Even the best self-driving cars require “supervision,” and I doubted that I could ever surrender my own driving vigilance to a machine enough to make it worthwhile.

I was wrong.

I think I’m a pretty good driver. I don’t speed; I don’t text or mix adult beverages with driving; I don’t tailgate; I keep my road rage to myself. In more than five decades of driving I’ve had two minor fender-benders (not my fault) and one speeding ticket (it was a misunderstanding).

But my self-driving car is a better driver than I am. It’s also a better driver than you are.

Not only does it never text or drink and drive, it never gets sleepy, frustrated or angry. It doesn’t speed (on its own, at least), tailgate or weave in and out of traffic. It doesn’t cut off other drivers. Its attention doesn’t wander, and it doesn’t have blind spots when changing lanes. It might occasionally make mistakes, but so do I.

As my car drives me where I wish, requiring very little of my attention, I wonder what life on the American road would be like if everyone had a self-driving car.

For one thing, our roads would be safer. Estimates vary based on definitions, but somewhere between 16,000 and 35,000 car crashes occur in the U.S. every day; more than 6,000 citizens are injured daily; and more than 100 are killed in wrecks. Every single day.

The biggest factors in this deadly tally are speed, alcohol and driver distraction. A self-driving car can’t keep you from drinking or texting behind the wheel, but you’ll be a lot safer if you do.

And so will the rest of us.

But there are other social advantages to universal self-driving cars. A few minutes “behind the wheel” of a self-driving car will remind you of how much energy we expend during ordinary driving: staying in our lane, changing lanes, controlling our speed, stopping and starting at traffic lights, making decisions about routes and looking for addresses. It’s a lot of work.

It’s also a lot of tension and psychic energy. If we, as a nation, relieved ourselves of this colossal effort, maybe we would be a more relaxed, tranquil country. Your self-driving car doesn’t feel the need to speed through traffic to get to the front of the line. It will not tailgate the guy in front of you; on the other hand, the self-driving car behind you won’t tailgate you.

Finally, here’s a technology that solves a number of problems and provides considerable benefits. What prevents us from adopting universal self-driving cars?

Probably cost. My car isn’t cheap. If you multiply its price by the 280 million vehicles in the U.S., the cost climbs into the low trillions.

On the other hand, Americans already spend more than a trillion dollars per year on vehicles. Automobile accidents add another $340 billion in direct economic costs. By some estimates, other costs associated with America’s commitment to car ownership reach two to three trillion dollars per year.

America probably took the wrong path a century ago when it chose private vehicles powered by internal combustion engines over electrified public transportation. Results include polluted air, a warming planet and, according to the American Automobile Association, 70 billion hours per year behind the wheel in repetitive, tedious, unproductive work. And 6,000 of us are injured every day and a hundred killed in auto accidents.

Now we have a technology, expensive as it might be, that could alleviate this staggering toll. Let’s put it to use.

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