Low and slow is the most dangerous kind of flying you can do.

Flying cars are also inevitably less efficient and heavier than a dedicated counterpart, meaning the flight envelope is small, and your aircraft is less responsive.

(lower power to weight ratio, less efficient use of the lower,)

Also, any real pilot would be able to explain why flying cars are a bad idea… so they’re probably not all that experienced.

I think if they become a thing people won't directly control them. Instead they will fly autonomously.

It's way easier to make something fly itself than drive itself

The pilot has always been the limiting factor for flying cars.

People are always saying "it's the future, right? Where are my jetpacks and flying cars?". And the truth is, there have been many prototype vehicles over the years that could be called flying cars, we've already done it. The reason everyone doesn't have one in their garage comes down to two factors.

1. Price. The reason cars are as affordable as they are is mass production. That is to say, still quite expensive, but within reach for most people in developed countries. With mass production you get that economy of scale, but most people simply don't need a flying car, so it will be hard to ever reach that level of mass production.

2. Skill to operate. A "flying car" is simply an aircraft that you can park at home. It's an airplane or a rotorcraft of some variety. As such, you'll need a pilots license to operate it, as well as (probably) a special certification for VTOL vehicles. Obtaining a pilots license is not as simple as a driver's license, there's just a lot more to know and the consequences of being underprepared are more severe. This isn't within reach for everyone, not everyone should be a pilot. That fact makes mass adoption near impossible and that exacerbates the first issue, not being able to utilize economies of scale.

The way I see it, people can't be expected to operate flying vehicles safely in congested areas, it's just not a realistic expectation. But I do think there is a route to this Jetsons future. When we actually master self-driving vehicles, when it's a mature and reliable technology, an expected feature on every new car, when it's demonstrably safer than any human driver, and when you no longer require a driver's license to operate the vehicle, at that point we're finally ready for flying cars; the rest of the technology is already there waiting for us.

Let's say we all magically become able to not crash into each other at all. That's not going to make things much safer; car aren't built with the strict QC of airplanes, they're bound to have more failures.

When you have wheels, it's not all that problematic, with some luck you could even be unscathed after losing a wheel on the highway.

Once you're flying though? Anything happens and you're pretty much toast

My bet is that personal flying vehicles will happen and gradually spread

probably not as a mass replacement for ground-based vehicles

but it'll be fully-autonomous vehicles. It won't be Average Joe becoming a pilot.

EDIT: Well, okay, I mean, you can get personal flying vehicles today

in the US, you don't need a license or anything to fly something like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_parachute

...whereas you do to operate a car on public roads. Just not allowed to fly over built-up areas. But I'm talking about heavier vehicles.