Look no hands!

[mudskipper]

BBC News - UK to allow driverless cars on public roads in January

Scary.

Will this eventually make the driving test obsolete? No more drink driving, kids driving themselves to school?

[MicrosoftBob]

It will be a very useful tool for political assassinations, much better than our governments excuse of a walk in the woods, their car can simply misbehave have a HAL moment and kill them

[original PM]

it would be great,

go out get p!ssed then no need to fork out for a taxi fare home...

awesome!

no more 'designated' driver (e.g. sad miserable bloke sat in a corner drinking coke while his/her mates get sloshed!)

[vwdan]

It's going to make riding a motorbike more fun!

[VectraMan]

From The Register article
Vince Cable unleashes SELF-DRIVING CAR TERROR on Blighty

The Transport Catapult, a government-funded organisation dedicated to devising new ways of getting us moving, is already testing driverless cars in Milton Keynes. However, the public-funded body's mouthpiece said work on these vehicles would be unaffected by the new laws because they drive on the pavement.

I suppose driving on the pavement is one way to reduce congestion.

[MyUserName]

Is there a current legal position on what happens if a driverless car kills someone?

[VectraMan]

Is there a current legal position on what happens when a driverless car kills someone?

FTFY.

Points on the car's licence?

It's a good point. As there's no driver to directly blame, it's going to mean the manufacturers will be responsible. Cue lots of expensive lawsuits.

[tomtomagain]

Driver-less cars are a great idea.

I look forward to getting one. Just think you'll be able to get it to drop you off at the pub, restaurant or wherever and get it to pick you up when you want to go home.

Need to run the kids to their clubs? Nah, just stick 'em in the car and off they go.

Fetching the ageing parents? Send it to pick them up.

Cars are the biggest killers of men aged 17 - 24 in the UK. No more roadside shrines.

And why would you need a car anyway? You could just call one up on demand from your smartphone, use it to take you where you need to be and send it off. Personal chauffeur for everyone. iTaxi. iCar.

Of course there will be fatal accidents. But never mind there were 1,754 People Killed on the UK's roads in 2012. And 20,000 serious injuries. If any other activity killed 5 people a day .... every day .... every year .... there would be uproar and "Something Must Be Done".


I want a driver-less car. I want a flying driver-less car. Living in the future is great.

[Mich the Tester]

I want a driver-less car. I want a flying driver-less car. Living in the future is great.

Here's why I don't want a driverless car;

... is the Government really expecting us to embrace the rented driverless pod? Why would we? So we can free up time to answer yet more emails, take yet more conference calls? The car is one of the few work-free sanctuaries left, now planes and the Tube have introduced Wi-Fi, damn them. Show me an exhausted businessman or mother, and I’ll show you someone all too happy to sit in a traffic jam on their own, singing at the top of their voice, daydreaming or listening to the Shipping Forecast.

In high-octane Britain, the driverless car is a*non-starter - Telegraph

Besides, I'm a tester; I've spent the last 15 years delving into faults in software, and despite all the predictions of the last 15 years of 'right first time', 'self testing software', '4GL will make testing obsolete' and 'continous delivery means bugs are fixed before they're found', it's probably easier than ever to make a complex system break and my skills are still in demand; a complex system is what you will get when you have 3 or more self driving cars and a few cars with drivers. It's not all that difficult to make a correctly functioning unit in a complex system; it's very difficult to predict how the whole system will behave further down the line in response to one unexpected occurrence in one unit.

I think the technology in driverless cars has its purposes, perhaps in driver assistance, but also in applications such as logistics, farming, exploration in remote areas, and so I think it's brilliant that they're being trialled, but putting them on the road on a large scale, mixed in with cars driven by humans, that's another matter.

[Sysman]

FTFY.

Points on the car's licence?

It's a good point. As there's no driver to directly blame, it's going to mean the manufacturers will be responsible. Cue lots of expensive lawsuits opportunities to sell insurance.

FTFY