Imagine an entire network of flying cars 
zooming around at 2,000 meters (6,561 feet)
above our congested city streets.
Your morning commute
would be a lot different up there:
you could travel at higher speeds,
and you could reach almost
any remote destination.
This is WHAT IF,
and here's what would
happen if we had flying cars.
The idea of flying cars has been around
for almost as long as the car has.
And with most people imagining that the 
future will include some form of flying vehicle,
we seem to have accepted that
flying cars will eventually become reality.
But do we need them?
The companies that are currently
producing them would say yes,
obviously, because they'd be
much more environmentally friendly
than our current gas-guzzling automobiles.
But other scientists say that,
we'd just be replacing one
environmental catastrophe with another.
Now, before we get too carried away with
the environmental impacts of flying cars,
let's figure out if it's even possible
to fill our skies with them.
Several companies have
already produced working models,
so we know that it's physically possible,
but making them a regular part of our
society would be much more complicated.
For starters, there's the
question of who'd be driving them:
Would it be us, or some kind
of artificial intelligence?
According to Aviation Safety magazine,
human error is the cause of 90 percent of
noncommercial plane accidents.
This is one of the reasons
why many experts think that
flying cars would need to be autonomous.
In other words, humans would not drive them.
Studies also show that accidents
are much more likely when
humans are behind the wheel
of the ordinary cars we have now.
And remember that up in the air, 
accidents would be a lot more destructive.
Not only would there
be high speed collisions,
but there would be the collateral
damage of the wrecks falling to the ground
or crashing into surrounding buildings.
Everyday normal car issues
that we experience on the ground
would also be a lot
more problematic in the air.
If your engine breaks down, or you
happen to run out of gas completely,
you can still pull over to the side of the road,
you just have to plummet for 2,000 meters
(6561.68 feet) before you crash there.
Bad weather would also become a much 
bigger problem on your airborne journeys,
as conditions like strong winds
could throw your flying car off course,
and possibly into a tailspin.
Maybe there would
have to be rules in place for
when a flying vehicle could and could
not be used because of Mother Nature.
And we'd need police up
there to enforce those rules,
along with other laws regarding
speed and allowed elevation heights.
But how would a cop pull
someone over in mid-air?
Ok, so clearly there would be a lot of work 
to do to integrate flying cars into our society,
but it'd all be for the good
of the environment, right?
It is estimated that an electric flying vehicle
could be 35 percent more energy efficient
over a 100 km (62 mile) trip when
compared to a gas-powered car.
But as impressive as this is,
it doesn’t top what an electric vehicle
is currently capable of achieving.
On top of that, although we'd be 
eliminating the problematic
gasolines needed for conventional cars,
mining the natural elements required 
for our flying cars' rechargeable batteries
would be just about as bad.
So maybe flying cars will never be convenient 
enough for the average commuter to rely on,
but that doesn't mean we should
stop exploring the technology.
Maybe the ideas behind flying cars
could lead to bigger and better
advancements down the road,
but that's a topic for another WHAT IF.
