[Closed] Who wants driverless/fully automated vehicles?

In general yes I'd like driverless cars.

A much, much better multi-modal transport infrastructure and way less cars on the road – is what I’d prefer.

They aren't exclusive. They are in fact orthogonal ideas. One is a social and government led project using existing tech, and requires planning and societal additude change; the other is purely automotive technology.

In fact they are highly complimentary. The multi modal transport scenario is made easier by driverless cars. For example, your car can drop you off at the station then take itself home instead of needing expensive parking space at the station along with thousands of others. It could then go and collect someone else in your family before collecting you in the evening. Etc etc. Of course you can do this with taxis but it's far less convenient.

I think cars should be 'owned' in the same way I 'own' a plane...
Call for it when I need it.

An automated self driving car could meet me WHEN I need it. Then drive off to the next person who needs it.
Going away with the family - call for a van.
Me and the missus - sporty drop top...

DrP

Yes please, it can't happen soon enough for me. A pool of regularly cleaned and maintained vehicles that you can just order with your phone or whatever, then when it's done with you it buggers off to its next booking or back to the depot for a recharge if it needed to would be great. There'd be no need to actually own a car.

Was thinking about this the other day

my youngest have just turned 6, wonder if theyll even have to take a driving test!

personally, I cant wait until long distance car journeys just involve me going for a doze or reading a book for a few hours!

Me and the missus – sporty drop top…

Whats the point in sporty if you're not driving it?

I'm happy for driverless cars if they're not stupidly expensive ot buy or hire along with the reformed public transport systems that will need to go along with it, and we can also get rid of idiot drivers and pollution. I just can't see it happening in my lifetime and i'm only 46.

What DrP said. I really hope it happens, but suspect it’ll be private ownership of too many cars.

 A much, much better multi-modal transport infrastructure and way less cars on the road – is what I’d prefer

There's no getting away from the fact that much of modern life is arranged as it is; because personalised transport allows people to live like they do, they're used to doing it, and largely, I think, would be resistant to change, I don't mind travelling by train, but it's mostly a crap experience, and won't always go to where I want or at the time I want or whatever. Like you my car sits on the drive for a large percentage of it's time, but when we do use it, it's fantastically convenient, useful, practical, cheap, private (I think lots of folks underestimate how important that is) and generally fast.

Remove the pollution from the equation, and I think most folks would go on driving.

I'd be fine with driving to a motorway or long dual carriage way, and have the care take over. I could see that being a useful and easy (er) thing to accomplish that most folks would be OK with.

Yes please.
As long as they are well tested 😉

An automated self driving car could meet me WHEN I need it. Then drive off to the next person who needs it.
Going away with the family – call for a van.
Me and the missus – sporty drop top…

Which again raises the question of who is actually pushing for these automated cars?

And what does it spell for the (as of now) extortionate and unimpressive rail services in countries such as the UK?

Judging by the current crop of driverless vehicles then no. Outside of extremely regulated private spaces the reliable use of driverless cars is still 10-15 years away. I'm not keen to share roads with something programmed by an idiot who's not interested in cyclists or pedestrians.

Driverless cars already outperform humans in terms of fatalities. Just thought I'd throw that one out there.

But yes - I want fully driverless cars. No steering wheel.

I want a round bubble-car, with a table in the middle so we can throw our bikes on the back, set it to "Alps" and then sit about and play card games and get wasted (it'll have a fully-stocked bar, of course). When we're knackered the table will fold into the floor, the seats will fold up in the middle, the glass will become opaque and the whole car will become a big bed.

Then we'll wake up in France, get the bikes out and play.

I can think of a few problems with shared cars.

Limited choice. Specific needs like dog cage, roof rack, large estate format, etc may well not be catered for.

Allergies. Our car carries two dogs with associated blankets, water bowls etc. Will everyone want to use a car a couple of large wet dogs have used for the previous journey.

Litter/dirt/general crap. Reality is that a perecentage of the population have no respect for shared property. Expect the car to turn uo with McDonalds cartons and coffee cups littered about.

Peak Demand. Congestion won't be eased if the same number of people are trying to get somewhere for 9am. Potentially it could get worse if autocars are doing there and back trips so the whole family is using the car rather than some using alt walk/cycle/bus methods.

Convenience. It will never be as instant as having a car sitting outside the house 24/7.

How will shared cars work for weekends away in the remote bits of the highlands. Hired for whole time? Called for from a hour's journey away?

Cost? Who knows. Running costs per mile would be much the same. Depreciation and some fixed costs would be shared and so a saving. For me a couple of hundred quid a month extra to have my own car is worth it.

If I lived in a congested urban area with no parking then I would be interested. But then maybe bus/train/bike/taxi are better.

Currently - I'm out.

I like the idea of just being able to summon a suitable vehicle that drives itself and is clean and ready to go.

BUT...

Wouldn't it be MUCH easier to achieve that with a more advanced taxi service?

Seems the only blocker for that is having to talk to a taxi driver.

Yeah I think they have place hopefully they may increase car safety.

my youngest have just turned 6, wonder if theyll even have to take a driving test!

Pretty sure that they will. Unless in 11 year they remove all car that require a driver off the roads and driverless are 100% driverless.

Perhaps a more realistic use case is that private ownership continues, but you reduce parking issues because your car can drop you outside your destination then go park itself in a windowless inhuman multi-storey until you summon it for the return trip.

yep, shared cars is definitely a no-no. Who wants to summon a car that someone's just 💩 in? 🤣

Autonomous privately owned cars though (only - no human-controlled cars at all) - yes! When they're safe enough, obvs. Despite those who doubt the tech, there inevitably [I]will[/I] come a time when they're safer and will result in less accidents than what we have now.

Driverless very light rail is a really interesting proposal that could week be on the streets within 3-5 years. Autonomous VLR battery powered vehicles only have to work about not running into stuff as opposed to directional changes and other things following irrational paths.
Rail is an ideal transportation system to automate, as long as there's a consistent and robust last mile system.

What DrP said, this would make me happy. Though that does sound much like a taxi now and i still use my own vehicles.

Driver a van but as little as possible, mixture of bikes/train mostly.

I live on a one-way street, and going by the amount of people who drive the wrong way down it (at double the speed limit so they can hopefully be out the other end before anyone else comes onto the road, obvs) I think self-driving cars can't come soon enough.

Allergies. Our car carries two dogs with associated blankets, water bowls etc. Will everyone want to use a car a couple of large wet dogs have used for the previous journey.

Litter/dirt/general crap. Reality is that a perecentage of the population have no respect for shared property. Expect the car to turn uo with McDonalds cartons and coffee cups littered about.

Cars that smell of mcdonalds = bad/selfish, cars that smell of wet dog = just an intractable problem with shared cars? Got it 😉

Peak Demand. Congestion won’t be eased if the same number of people are trying to get somewhere for 9am. Potentially it could get worse if autocars are doing there and back trips

I do think this is a potential issue. At moment, 000's of people drive to work and park up. If they all used self-driving cars, those cars would then potentially also make a return journey into town to do other jobs. It could make rush hour a lot worse!

I've already been in a driverless around an industrial estate and shopping area, and more of that please. Replacing taxis - yes please.

I've done enough long drives to like the idea of driverless for that too. I drove some long tunnels in a car with 1/2 decent autopilot, and it did a very good job, and better than most people i.m.e.

Isaac Asimov "Sally"

my youngest have just turned 6, wonder if theyll even have to take a driving test!

Pretty sure that they will. Unless in 11 year they remove all car that require a driver off the roads and driverless are 100% driverless

.

I couldn't afford to learn to drive until I was 33. If those 6 year olds are as financially challenged as I was, maybe they won't need to!

@irc so shared cars are a non- starter. Which just reinforces my prediction of more and more individual cars for most all journeys (albeit also wiping out employment opportunities for drivers)

Also less reasons to use more environmentally sustainable options such as electric rail transit/mass transit systems?

Car culture in this country has a hell of a long way to go before people will accept the book an autonomous vehicle situation. People just love their fancy status symbols too much. I mean look how car leasing has taken off! I've got a colleague - works from home 3 days a week, only ever drives 5-10miles to his mum's and back and on the few trips into the office actually moans about using petrol! The rest of the time he's leasing a car (£350 a month?) to sit outside his flat.
Totally baffles me. And I'm sure there are 100s of thousands of households doing the same.
Yes, I'd like automated vehicles. I drove a new Yaris with lane control and adaptive cruise and it was the most relaxing drive I've ever had.. But, as a cyclist, I can bet I'd be a lot less irritated by selfish ignorant ****s if the cars were making the decisions!

I couldn’t afford to learn to drive until I was 33. If those 6 year olds are as financially challenged as I was, maybe they won’t need to!

Yes there’s always the other extreme. Well done.

But, as a cyclist, I can bet I’d be a lot less irritated by selfish ignorant **** if the cars were making the decisions!

Possibly. Would some enterprising coder develop a Gammon 2.0 or B3LL3ND hack/patch for them though?

*want*

It always amuses me when people claim cars are cheap. they are not. they cost thousands per year with the huge subsidies they get. Put that subsidy into public transport instead and see how cheap public transport becomes. I can do and regularly do a 100+mile return trip by train for £14. A car would be £40+ total cost not additional cost. Even the additional cost would be more than the train

Yes please, they are likely to make better driving decisions than the worst third of drivers, and significantly cut congestion by actually driving to the conditions and re-routing in response to issues ahead.

Congestion won’t be eased if the same number of people are trying to get somewhere for 9am.

Self driving, personally owned vehicles will come first, possibly with some form of connected awareness, rather than all-on-board sensing and computation. The rich will pay for this development whether they want it or not. Next will come fleet ownership and centralised management enabling properly humanless driving - hire cars. Next will be fully autonomous, fully connected, hire on demand for everyday use for those that want it. Think second cars, light usage, holiday usage, etc. I don't think there's any chance that we'll move to a point beyond private ownership/lease unless (maybe) there are tiered/tailored services to cater to each segment of society. Even then - I think there's too much profit in the selling of cars to individuals for a premium to see this one going away soon.

Automonous vehicles will kill local and regional rail services along with all short haul (less than 600km) air travel that doesn't go over water as it's both door-to-door and should be equally as fast once it's all connected.

I’d love one, mostly so I don’t have to drive myself home after a nightshift.

To be fair I’d also happily get on a train if it were clean, had enough seats and didn’t mean I had to leave over an hour earlier to get there. It would also cost over £100/month more to get us both to work, on the plus side I’d end up fitter as I’d have to walk out ride 4 miles a day as well.

I don’t know if driverless cars are the answer, improving public transport so it actually works properly would probably be a better solution.

I can do and regularly do a 100+mile return trip by train for £14.

Please tell how? I wanted to go to a gig in Bristol last week (which is only 60 miles away) and it was something like £40 for return ticket and no options to return before 6am next day - so we had to drive.

Although (being Brizzle?) I did have a nice surprise leaving the venue and seeing about 100 *notcars* parked outside. That night put the biggest smile on my face I’ve had for ages.

But to get this thread on track again - who/which body/s are pushing for fully automated cars? And with what (if any) input from the population?

I don’t know if driverless cars are the answer, improving public transport so it actually works properly would probably be a better solution.

I have the feeling that increased focus on car-culture/revenue (if that is possible) will only decrease investment in public transport.

Revenue from auto sales worldwide 2020-2030
It is projected that the global automotive industry will generate about 3.8 trillion U.S. dollars from auto sales by 2030. This market is anticipated to increase most significantly between 2025 and 2030.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103008/global-auto-sales-revenue/

Madness.

Don't worry. This is the future of motoring.

I can do and regularly do a 100+mile return trip by train for £14. A car would be £40+ total cost not additional cost.

If course it does depend on how convenient your public transport is. If I visit my brother it's about 1.5 hours by car. Public transport involves 3 buses, 2 trains and a fair bit of walking and waiting around, say 3.5 hours minimum. The costs are similar.

Yes please, it can’t happen soon enough for me. A pool of regularly cleaned and maintained vehicles that you can just order with your phone or whatever, then when it’s done with you it buggers off to its next booking or back to the depot for a recharge if it needed to would be great. There’d be no need to actually own a car.

We already have those, we call them taxis.

 I can do and regularly do a 100+mile return trip by train for £14

which is great if it's convenient. Often it's not.

I looked at getting a train home from Leicester to Leeds last week, only needed one way as I could get a lift down there with someone already going that way, £50. I ended up driving my van both ways instead as it only cost me about £25 in fuel.

Public transport NEEDS sorting out to change the car culture first, then we can think about other ways of getting about.

Edit: saying that, we got the train up to Headingley for the cricket yesterday, 2 adults and 2 kids, train 1 stop into Leeds then out to Headingley £8.60 return with a family and friends rail card. So it can be good.

But yes – I want fully driverless cars. No steering wheel.

I want a round bubble-car, with a table in the middle so we can throw our bikes on the back, set it to “Alps” and then sit about and play card games and get wasted (it’ll have a fully-stocked bar, of course). When we’re knackered the table will fold into the floor, the seats will fold up in the middle, the glass will become opaque and the whole car will become a big bed.

Then we’ll wake up in France, get the bikes out and play.

We already have those, we call them trains.

Please tell how?

Edinburgh city centre to glasgow city centre. £14.70 iirc off peak return. 95 milesish

Its also much quicker than a car and I can drink a coffee and browse STW with the free on board wifi

Or I can do Edinburgh to Milngavie for £17

I'm a bit worried that passengers in automated cars will get even more frustrated by cyclists than they are at present and will also have more capability to physically and verbally abuse riders when their speed is automatically reduced behind them.

I’m a bit worried that passengers in automated cars will get even more frustrated by cyclists than they are at present and will also have more capability to physically and verbally abuse riders when their speed is automatically reduced behind them.

we can fix that with automated bikes too 🙂

@tjagain Yeah a similar city-city distance for me by train would be Worcester to London. Around £40 off-peak return. Forget peak journeys. So every time Mrs P needs to go to a hospital appointment (in central London) it’s food bank time. Would maybe like to move to Scotland but with ageing/increasingly infirm folks it will be selfish. Unless of course there was now a swift, sustainable, affordable national/public transit system that isn’t an expensive car in the future …

Cars that smell of mcdonalds = bad/selfish, cars that smell of wet dog = just an intractable problem with shared cars? Got it 😉

Well it must be. Last time I tried to use the current autocars - a taxi - with my dog, the first three drivers said no.

Not intractable but another issue. Splitting the fleet into pet/not pet vehicles.

Edinburgh city centre to glasgow city centre. £14.70 iirc off peak return. 95 milesish

Manchester to Leeds is similar; £15.00...And if I don't want to go to Leeds?

i often get the train to Newcastle as a couple or a family. It’s much more pleasant then driving and I can have a few drinks too as a couple or a family. It use to be a lot cheaper than taking the car but now it’s more than using the electric. Still do it know as it makes a nice day out.

We went to York a couple of weeks ago 5 of us with a car full of cricket gear. Cost less than £30 door to door plus a run into York itself for a some refreshments. Yes, I know there’s the outlay of the car itself but have a car for my wife to get to work and now myself too.

Absolutely a big investment is needed into public transport.

I can’t believe this has never been discussed before.

British treat their cars like Americans treat their guns, and the arguments for and against have the same range of valid through moronic.
Its hugely complicated, and OBVIOUSLY in an ideal world we would be able to sack them off all together, through joined up public transport, magic self driving taxis, and things like working from home and grocery deliveries!

But there ARE valid reasons for having them, and at the end of the day many people LIKE having them. (im not one of them, for clarity)

I dont think just turning around and legistlating them away will work, as there are so many and so ingrained in our current world (see also, americans and guns)

I would however, like to see better alternatives posed.

and a reduction in idiots frees up the roads for people who wantor have to drive for whatever reason

One way or another (Legislation or whatever) it should be enforced that taking a journey by public transport should NEVER cost more than the cost of fuel to drive. Why would i take a train to a place near(ish) to my destination for twice or 3 times the cost in diesel to drive myself to the door? it might be cheaper in admin just to make Public transport free at point of use. People might use it then!

But I’d much prefer some infrastructure that meant I didn’t have to share busy roads with either mad people or robots

I would choose robots every day. Robots dont fall asleep, or get impatient, or look at their phone, or fiddle with the radio, or make dicey decisions and shady overtakes.

I dont think just turning around and legistlating them away will work

Is that even an argument? As much as I despise car culture I’ve never once made that argument and I don’t know anyone who does? (except for public zoning)

Again, as per title of thread does anyone know who is actually pushing the drive for self-driving cars?

It always amuses me when people claim cars are cheap. they are not.

Absolutely correct TJ, but most of it is a "hidden" cost. The only immediately obvious price is fuel and even that is a bit displaced from the actual journey.

Plus if you are acutely aware of the hidden costs then you are just as likely to fall into sunken cost fallacy. "Well it is going to deprecate anyway so I might as well use it"

Again, as per title of thread does anyone know who is actually pushing the drive for self-driving cars

Isn't it just tech companies that will make millions from selling the systems?

I can do and regularly do a 100+mile return trip by train for £14. A car would be £40+ total cost not additional cost. Even the additional cost would be more than the train

I like trains... but the issue is that whereas a car costs £X to make a journey, it's pretty much the same if there's jsut me, or 3 others.
Wheras a TRAIN IS £y FOR ME. aND £4y IF 4 OF US MAKE THE JOURNEY.

dRp

(ARG....caps lock madness!!)

I think cars should be ‘owned’ in the same way I ‘own’ a plane…
Call for it when I need it.

An automated self driving car could meet me WHEN I need it. Then drive off to the next person who needs it.

That's Uber isn't it?

Absolutely a big investment is needed into public transport.

I can’t believe this has never been discussed before.

I've always said that when they make me emperor for life I'll make public transport (trains, trams, buses, river ferries etc) completely FREE to everyone at point of use.

Radical, but think how that would alter habits and the "need" for a car.

To go back to the OP I am generally in favour of self driving cars but we are a long long way from it being practical yet.

Which again raises the question of who is actually pushing for these automated cars?

Car manufacturers are the only ones pushing as could in future mean more profit for them in a build it and they will come approach.

Don't think that many consumers are that bothered about it and to really make change would need to be along the lines of summoning a car when needed and never needing to own a car personally as mentioned above.

The other thing to consider is if we hand over the roads and cars to computers, it should all become much more efficient. One of the biggest factors for getting people out of cars is the traffic, and the delay it causes, fundamentally that issue will be solved (to a large measure) by letting computers control when and how fast you can travel, It scuppers one the big incentives to get people out of their cars.

Fully automated vehicles will put millions of people out of work, and save companies/corporations a LOT of money. Not a good idea in my eyes

Fully automated vehicles will put millions of people out of work

To go back to the OP I am generally in favour of self driving cars

But have you been involved in the push for it, ie were you asked? It’s like so many other things, it’s seemingly an ‘inevitability’*

Which will lead to more and more roads and less and less public transport.

*But is it being lobbied and pushed through by anyone?

I think about this a lot

The big advantage will be having one central AI moving everything will mean we can travel at much higher speeds without the need for traffic lights and other things needed to control slow, dumb mushy humans. We’ll just be doing 300mph passing a few mm from each other’s vehicles, meshing across junctions etc

I think there will be a few steps before that but that has to be the ultimate end goal, until we can expand transport vertically of course

I expect a lot of reluctance from people until they realise they get places faster, stress less and die less. And of course can also have a drink or whatever we take in the future. Quick DMT trip on the way to work anyone?

Yes please!

Which will lead to more and more roads and less and less public transport.

Self driving cars may well be the future of public transport.

At the moment - SDV isn't being pushed at all - it's seen as the next great opportunity for the automotive sector, the next differentiator. It'll be like EVs vs. ICE. It starts niche and premium and gradually becomes the yardstick by which cars are judged. SDV vs. the rest.

Does anyone want an ICE car these days if they can afford and EV? It's aspirational, it's seen as sustainable, but most of all, it's highly desirable. SDV is that, but a few years down the line.

Once the technology is proven to work reliably and is accessible through multiple manufacturers, you'll see others start to develop disruptive concepts around it.

One of those concepts will undoubtedly be the purchase or rental of a fleet of vehicles to replace rural public transport and community support vehicles. The economics of that will be studied to determine if it could replace local rail at less cost and greater and more flexible availability.

Yes/No/Maybe????

Some Humans are fantastic, attentive, patient drivers... But a noticeable proportion really aren't.

So in principle removing the fallible meat sack from the control functions of a 2 Ton heap of speeding metal is something I am in favour of.

But then it all feels a bit like another verse of "Technology will solve all our Problems" and I can't help not really believing the failure rate of a distributed/connected AI or whatever ends up driving your car will be lower than the previously mentioned meat sack.

Realistically the best way to reduce the various impacts of cars on peoples health and the environment is to not use them, better yet to not even own them.
And of course once a car drives itself, where's the real point in owning it Vs summoning it with an app? You're not going to be Driving 'vigorously' or 'making progress' like you were able to in the good old days...

Ultimately I would like to be cycling and using public transport more locally and Trains for longer distance journeys, driving as the exception not the rule, but all too often we default to the tin box, I'm very aware of how car reliant (over reliant) our family has become.

Case in point; I chose to pick the kids up from a Saturday morning club they both do, which is less than half a mile from home. I turned up on a bike intending to walk back with them, both of them complained immediately that they were going to have to "all the way home" like peasants... Cars are ruining my kids by making them lazy, OK Me and My wife are making them lazy with our car by getting them accustomed to not walking.

Self driving cars won't fix the whole being lazy thing, they'll make it worse. But I'm hoping a confluence of circumstances: Squeezed incomes, Expensive cars and a post covid period of people wanting to get out and be sociable again, will lead to a growth in "Active transport" use, not a growth in people financing a self driving car...

Self driving cars may well be the future of public transport.

One other point I always get to when discussing this with people is they will always come out with " oh but it will have to be super safe, can't have any malfunctions". Which of course is a good sentiment but let's bear in mind that the current system is shocking. A quick Google suggests almost 1.5 million deaths a year so as long as the robots only kill a million that's a huge improvement

I'm exaggerating there of course but the point is that it shouldn't be a zero tolerance thing, I can see the media latching on to that first AI caused SDV accident so we need to be careful to compare to what we have, not what we think we should have

the point is that everyone will still want one each then expect some genius to remap the thing to do XYZ like the pops and bangs remaps we all love to hear with obvious consequences

You’re not going to be Driving ‘vigorously’ or ‘making progress’ like you were able to in the good old days…

It will be shocking for some of these drivers when they realise they've arrived at their destination at exactly the same time it would have taken for them to 'drive vigorously' there.

I have a revolutionary idea. Please stop me if it blows your brains...

...choice!

Choose to use a driverless car when the situation fits, take a train when suitable, have your own car if you like, hells teeth man, you could even have a bike as well!

Once driverless cars become significantly safer than human driven one then it will become harder ad harder to justify driving as you put everyone else at risk

But the transition will not be for many decades yet IMO

And of course once a car drives itself, where’s the real point in owning it Vs summoning it with an app?

Same as now?

Convenience, greed/lack of fwd planning to the nth degree?

For instance those with a serious disability/health problem currently have to book/wait for a lift to arrive ie to plan ahead. Yet I can’t see the gen. pop. choosing that option. They will continue to opt for the cars for short local trips as far as not walking or cycling and choosing instead to use a car (unlike disabled who have no choice but to), but the gen. pop. won’t want to plan ahead/wait around? They want it right now and they want to keep their own mess/belongings in it. A car became a house extension and an instant gratification. I’m sure not many of us want to walk that one backwards now we’ve got everything and a bag of chips (and costing nothing but a huge chunk of income and the Earth)

Then there is the biggie: Status + owning things? Once ppl catch on to their favourite purveyor of freedomsTM now trying to rent them something instead? Something that tracks your every movement. This sounds like a dystopian nightmare from their favourite Infowars/Russell Brand-branded conspiracy (‘you will own nothing and you will be happy’).

Add in all of the decent arguments (ie filth, litter etc

Look at the way people treat those hire-scheme city bikes?

Choose to use a driverless car when the situation fits, take a train when suitable, have your own car if you like, hells teeth man, you could even have a bike as well!

Well, I couldn’t afford to take a train the other night so I had to take the old banger Which was still a quarter of a train trip cost (even at nearly £2 a litre for fuel). As for cycling, have you seen the cycling infrastructure? This isn’t and shall never be the Netherlands.

So much for ‘choice’. I see a future of endlessly increasing cars/car-usage, more and more roads, and most of the revenue funnelling to billionaires.

I really like cars- I enjoy driving, done trackdays and such, spent a lot of time fannying around with them. Just got me a little mx5 which might well be my last fossil fuel car and it makes me feel a bit sad.

Buuuut, I think I'd trade all of that for being able to just put the bike in the back and sit in the front with my kindle and go "car, take me to fort william"

public transport (trains, trams, buses, river ferries etc) completely FREE to everyone at point of use.

Radical, but think how that would alter habits and the “need” for a car.

Scotland recently introduced a free bus pass for all people aged under 22yrs.
The result has been a vast increase in young people using the buses.
The same thing happened when the over 60s passes were opened up for all buses rather than just local ones. (Around 2006?)
I agree with the poster above, free buses/trains would reduce a massive amount of cars.
Btw, I’m a bus driver, bus passes make my job a frickin ton easier, not having to deal with change etc.

“car, take me to fort william”

Then you go to sleep and wake up in Billingham in Teeside.

Not in my lifetime and likely not in your kids'.

My car has all manner of driver assistance technology. Adaptive cruise control is great except occasionally when passing a parked car or a vehicle in the Right Turn lane it shits itself, slams on the anchors and starts screaming.

Trains still need drivers and they're on rails. Sort that one out first and then get back to me about cars.

Trains still need drivers and they’re on rails. Sort that one out first and then get back to me about cars.

They really don't. The ONLY reason that trains still have drivers is Unions. DLR is the prime example of this.

I can build a feedback control system into a Lego train using a Raspberry Pi and radar sensor which can compensate for speed and weight and stop perfectly everytime whilst maintaining a schedule.

Me. I hate driving. I hate being driven by someone else, and the sooner I can hand the job over to a computer the better. If I get squashed under a driverless car while on my bike I’ll know that it’s a genuine accident as opposed to a driver misjudging their punishment pass.

Law could be updated now to formally assign liability to the driver of the vehicle who’s turned off safety aids because they think their driving is so good they don’t need them. Once self driving is here then you should definitely assume personal liability in the event of an accident, regardless of the cause, if you’re driving manually.

Martymac (bus driver) is my hero - vastly underpaid for what the job entails, especially in relation to train drivers (huh? What's that about?)! I did the training a couple of years ago pre-Covid, thought '**** that' and moved on. Good example of a job where the skills required are in no way related to the pay - and also a great illustration of how driverless vehicles (at least in a country like the UK) are a distant dream....

Adaptive cruise control is great except occasionally when passing a parked car or a vehicle in the Right Turn lane it shits itself, slams on the anchors and starts screaming.

That's like saying we shouldn't have computers flying planes because my laptop keeps crashing. The tech that'll go into driverless cars will be completely different to adaptive cruise control and will be regulated to be far more reliable. With adaptive cruise the onus is still on you.

Is your car a VW by the way? My Hyundai has never done anything weird with regards the cruise feature.