Self-driving cars are coming sooner than you think, and that is bad news for the auto repair industry.

For one thing, there won’t be as much body shop work needed because cars will be crashing less often. Most body shops are small, locally owned businesses employing skipped blue collar labor, so look for a lot of small business owners to go out business and a bunch of skilled people to become unemployed. Not a great outcome.

You would think that auto repair shops would be in a better position. After all, cars that are driven wear out and have to be fixed, right?

Not so fast. Cars driven on autopilot will be driven less hard and therefore wear out slower, meaning fewer repairs. And even worse, the liability legalities around self driving cars might mean that in order to get insurance, you have to have certain repairs done by the dealer. Like anything to do with the steering. If steering repairs are not done ‘in house’, the car manufacturer could refuse any responsibility for self-driving mode and make the car uninsurable.

So look for another bunch of folks to be out of jobs, and car dealers to get additional revenue. Isn’t technology great?