Using the [1]Cruise metrics, that equates to around 25,000 robotaxis at a net cost of £1.6M each. Truly the "potential benefits" of which Liz Truss would be proud.

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/cruise_confirms_driverless_taxis_need/

I was thinking more about the 2035 target date. Safely in the future - nobody in government today will be there to be held to it, even if anyone remembers.

Given the state of some of the UK's roads, the potholes that I find I have to regularly negotiate locally will definitely scupper many a robo-taxi!

That you call the scenic route with added entertainment . It will make your gentleman master spy franchise proud by giving a whole new meaning to shaken, not stirred. Passengers will surely offer any and all secrets after a self-driving guided tour.

The simplest solution would be to beef up the vehicles themselves. I don't know where the sweet spot is though, somewhere between a Land Rover and a Challenger?

@DJV

But the driver must be fleeced to subsidise other forms of transport. How dare we expect our roads to be car worthy

This has always been necessary.

At which point you're putting the liability on the software - which if they are the "driver" by their definition - also means: INSURANCE.

So now although you might choose to insure your car as an asset, the "3rd-party" (main) component of the insurance should be on the system driving it.

Then you will discover that a) nobody wants to take that on as a car manufacturer and/or b) the cost of self-driving cars / subscriptions (yep, ongoing costs of insurance will require ongoing subscriptions) skyrockets to compensate.

And it's only at that point that, drunk as a skunk, you can get into a self-driving car and let it take you home. Until then, you are always the driver/responsible.

So, look forward to expensive subscriptions for self-driving, paying insurance for the vehicle AND 3rd-party insurance via the subscription, and companies being sued to oblivion and your car "decertified" if, for instance, something like the Dieselgate scandal comes out, or some AI is found to be terribly faulty as a knock-on effect of even one lawsuit involving the cars around the world. A recall will mean "no driver" until you update your software to a recertified version. Not to mention obsoletion when your car software is not up-to-date, or is too old to support, and now it's no longer legal to use on the road except if you're driving it yourself.

This stuff is all "just another 20 years away" again, because the above isn't going to happen overnight no matter how much business you throw at it. And when it does, Ford etc. are then basically a software / insurance company that happens to make cars.

So... in the event that the automation does something which would result in disqualification for a fleshy meatsack driver, is it then forbidden to move until the ban is completed - six months, a year, ten years? Leaving the owner with an unusable and depreciating asset? And if the offence is punishable with prison, will there be a big HM Car Park to which the vehicle is escorted and left at His Majesty's Pleasure?

Surely the onus - and the risk - is upon the company developing the vehicle to make sure it doesn't misbehave in these ways.

Why not? That's what humans get. And this self-driver is all the same entity, so yep.

Now imagine the insurance that the manufacturers will build into it once they realise that one car accident could cripple all their cars until the courts rule it's safe to drive again. Ouch.

The onus is entirely on whatever is in control of the vehicle. If that's me, it's on me. If that's not me, it's going to be the car.

Like I explain to bad bosses on a regular basis in my career - I can have both the power and the responsibility, or neither, but you can't mix and match.

"is it then forbidden to move"

If the software is common to all the vehicles of that type then presumably the ban should apply to all of them.

Yes but there still has to be the ability to "Ban" the vehicle,

Let's assume there is a bug. That makes all other vehicles vulnerable so they should all be "banned".

The company then has to take the hit providing taxis or whatever to the people who have bought the shite in the first place.

Just like an MOT, if it is not road worthy then it cannot be legally driven.

It will be easy enough as the vehicles are all connected to data anyway.

Just because this is software does not take away any of the responsibility. Software has a history of being bug-ridden detritus that is just about good enough. Those systems that are good are at teh very top end and extremely specialised, not consumer solutions.

There is an acceptance that software can have bugs, it does not matter, it does not kill or injure, just a periodic inconvenience. Now you are putting the software in control 1 1/2 tonnes of metal that is interacting with the general public without constraint.

This has been my argument as well.

As soon as control of the vehicle passes to software, the people who created that software and own all the rights etc have to be responsible and culpable when it goes wrong.

That includes prison sentences if the failure merits it. Death by dangerous driving has to be the outcome is someone is killed by a self-driving vehicle and people at teh company have to be responsible. That will be the QA team that sign off.

I would also include the occupants of the vehicle as well. If the vehicle crashes when it is supposed to be self driving and software of sensor failure is the cause then they are culpable.

Currently there is no responsibility, it is with the driver. The entire point of self driving is that the occupants do not need to take over. The reality is that someone cannot because they are unable to react fast enough anyway. If you need a "driver" in the vehicle to be responsible and be able to take over then the entire thing is a complete waste of time.

Based on what my latest Golf appears to be capable of doing we are years away from safe self driving. It is not capable of running on the road and we must not be in the situation where to have self driving vehicles, there have to be massive upgrades to roads. That is completely pointless. Spend the money on public transport instead.

"It is not capable of running on the road and we must not be in the situation where to have self driving vehicles, there have to be massive upgrades to roads. That is completely pointless. Spend the money on public transport instead."

Why would we waste the money on public transport instead? Cars are popular for the simple fact that they actually work. You get in the car, drive to where you are going and get out, the exceptions being in crowded cities. Public transport may or not arrive, is not pleasant and you have to get yourself to the pickup point, travel to where the transport is doing dropoffs, then get to where you are going. And that is best case scenario of local travel, anything further afield is usually much worse.

I am not convinced of automated transport on the smaller roads but on the main arteries I can see it being a good idea. Especially for trucking goods.

An interesting point will be the overlap of responsibility between autonomous mode and manual mode. Surely it's not fair to 100% blame the human if the car goes back to manual mode a second before a crash?

It's the old hybrid-dilemma.

If you hedge your bets and try to make a device do two different things, chances are it will do both badly and cause you more problems than either.

As far as I see it, you would need to be buying a "self-driving car" (with a subscription because the software/insurance would be on the manufacturer of the car) or a "human-driving car".

At that point you can abandon all controls, steering, instruments, much of the dashboard, etc. and make the car's job so much easier.

But trying to do both in one is just a temporary solution that's never going to work well in terms of liability, insurance, etc. We're already seeing that with Tesla "Autopilot". All parties point fingers at the other and it becomes an expensive mess to sort out.

Whereas a dedicated self or human driving car - you know exactly who's liable immediately and can just deal with the collision (never "accident") straight away.

Self-driving cars will be a thing eventually, but they'll be a totally different thing. They'll be a personal transport unit that you hire or rent. The seats don't even need to face forward or even be seats - they could be beds! But the obsession with trying to make the car do the human's job but tolerating interference from the human, not to mention all the other humans around it, on a road built for humans and signs and signals readable by humans, plus handing back to a dead/inattentive human if it panics, and putting the onus on the human at all times... that's just a ridiculous mess of liability.

I would be happy to see a little automated pod zooming down an isolated lane of a motorway overtaking me, with kids lying on a bed reading a book on the back seat, and mum and dad making sandwiches in the front seat (which is turned to face the kids). I'd be in sci-fi heaven.

But what we have at the moment is idiot-hell where some twat thinks that their self-driving car is infallible, falls asleep at 70mph and kills a family, then tries to blame the manufacturer when it's not even clear if he ever turned on the self-driving at all.

They'll be a personal transport unit that you hire or rent.

Yes, the essential bit of "you will own nothing".

what we have at the moment is idiot-hell where some twat thinks that their self-driving car is infallible, falls asleep at 70mph and kills a family, then tries to blame the manufacturer when it's not even clear if he ever turned on the self-driving at all.

At the moment a "self driving car" is legally speaking no more than cruise control; it is there to assist the driver and is never in control of the vehicle. The owner is always liable for a crash and it's very difficult to get the manufacturer for anything because there is no process built into law for holding the manufacturer responsible for anything beyond manufacturing faults. If the manufacturer is moving into driving however then clearly that is no longer fit for purpose.

I would be inclined to support a different method whereby a self driving car must pass a driving test. Additionally, at the moment nobody bothers legally crucifying a driver who kills themselves in an accident for obvious reasons. If a self driving car manages that then it needs to be prosecuted and banned for whatever period is appropriate; and that needs to remove every instance of that self driving vehicle from the roads for the protection of the public for the defined duration of the ban. And also; the manufacturer should supply insurance for the self driving portion of the car or self insure by agreeing to bear all costs and depositing the half million required in an escrow bank account as per the requirement in the highway code.

I would be happy to see a little automated pod zooming down an isolated lane of a motorway overtaking me, with kids lying on a bed reading a book

[1]Let's see what happens in a car with a child crash dummies sitting on a seat in a crash without a seatbelt.

How do you wear a seatbelt lying on a bed? Surely you'd get your head smashed open against the rear of the vehicle in an accident, and then catapulted through the front window? I suspect that your always going to be stuck with seats and seatbelts.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym5GFPJZfLo

I think the implication was that it's a controlled lane, separated from the meatsack drivers, entirely filled with computer controlled vehicles that are completely aware of the lane and each other, and thus crashes would be exceptionally rare except for mechanical failure.

"They'll be a personal transport unit that you hire or rent."

So on Monday morning you'll rent or hire the unit that took last night's party of drunks home? I doubt it.

May not be fair, but to bureaucrats that won't matter. Somebody always has to be liable. In the UK it'll be the driver because the bureaucrats hate motorists. In the US it'll be the car maker or software provider, simply because that way there's plenty of money to be made by the lawyers (easier than wringing it out of individual driver's insurance companies on a slow case by case basis).

And in that situation it will all be logged and available for analysis.

That logging needs to be in Escrow so that the manufacturer cannot tamper with it.

Looks like the UK is heading towards totalitarian dystopia and self-driving cars is just a thin end of the wedge.

Here is why:

The government could use the pretext of ensuring safety and efficiency in self-driving vehicles to install advanced surveillance systems. These systems could monitor not just traffic conditions but also keep a track of citizens’ movements, associations, and routines.

With the advent of self-driving technology, the government could exert more control over where and when people travel. By requiring mandatory routes or restricting access to certain areas, the government could effectively control population movement under the guise of traffic management or environmental concerns.

Promoting reliance on automated vehicles could lead to a decline in driving skills among the populace, making them more dependent on government-controlled transportation systems. This dependency could be leveraged to control aspects of citizens' lives, such as limiting travel during certain times or to certain locations.

By highlighting the risks of cyber-attacks, the government could enforce strict cybersecurity measures that may include invasive monitoring of personal devices and communications under the pretext of national security.

The government could exploit the vast amounts of data collected through self-driving vehicles for commercial gain or political manipulation. This could include selling data to third parties (as they do with NHS now) or using it to manipulate public opinion and electoral outcomes.

By controlling the rollout and access to self-driving technology, the government could create a divide in society – those who have access to the latest technology and those who do not. This could lead to social stratification and increased control over the privileged class.

With self-driving vehicles being highly dependent on software and remote control systems, a government with nefarious intentions could theoretically gain access to these systems. This access could be used to remotely control vehicles, directing them to crash at high speeds, making it appear as an accident. Such a method of targeting opponents would offer the government plausible deniability, as vehicle crashes can often be attributed to mechanical failures or errors in the self-driving system, rather than foul play. This tactic could be used selectively and covertly against key political opponents, journalists, activists, or anyone deemed a threat to the regime. The randomness and apparent non-connection of these accidents could make it difficult to trace back to the government. People raising concerns could be dismissed as conspiracy theorists etc. using the usual methods.

I'm not sure Braverman is that technically literate... (thank $DEITY)

Technical illiteracy is no block on her intentions. Quite the opposite, I think.

Where do they get these arbitrary numbers from? Doing what, exactly?

Manfacturers already have their R&D teams, and if they solve the problems around self-driving those teams definitely won't be growing, so it won't be that.

Manfacturers already have their buillding teams, and are progressively automating their build processes, so it won't be that.

Existing mechanics will mostly retrain to be qualified for work on autonomous cars, so it won't be that.

Taxi drivers will be displaced by autonomous cars, so it definitely won't be that.

Yes, that was my thought as well.

Presumably the new jobs will be plugging them into chargers and cleaning the seats?

"Where do they get these arbitrary numbers from?"

Sitting round a table shouting out numbers until someone says "That sounds about right.".

That's literally how it works in many places.

I'm sorry, but what drugs are the researchers on? Neither 2 nor 40 seconds is in any way adequate. It needs *minutes*.

Either the time to handover is short (and 40 seconds is still short), in which case a self driving car is largely useless as the driver has to be continuously alert and in a position to take control.

Alternatively it's a self driving car that actually works within a given environment (let's say a motorway), in which case it is 'safe' to take a nap, have lunch, engross yourself in a book or computer game, where there is several minutes warning that the motorway turn off is arriving and control is needed on A/B roads. If the driver does not take control a few minutes prior to turn off, the car most probably should move to the hard shoulder and stop. That has implications both for smart motorways, and also for detection and penalties for not taking control in a timely manner.

Can't say I'm confident or particularly enthused about the prospect of a self driving car in the forseeable future, even if it's highly attractive to be able to tell the car to do 4-6 hours of motorway driving and chill out, or even the prospect of starting a long distance journey early in the morning and sleeping most of the way.

" But a report from Parliament's Transport Committee highlights a number of obstacles in the vehicles' path. "

Which is rather more than the vehicle's sensors did in at least a couple of cases ...

We have two Mway junctions near town with pairs of giant roundabouts, four or five lanes. The road markings were pretty unclear to start with and are now (mostly) so faded that they're becoming a real hazard, esp for those who don't know the roundabouts. I am not sure how a self-driving car will negotiate this sort of thing... never mind who's responsible for any accidents.

it's embarrassing.

If a car wants to drive by itself (or it's manufacturers) then it sits a bog standard UK driving test.

If it passes then - like us mean puppets - it has demonstrated a level of competence assumed to be "safe enough"

All of this hand wringing would make sense if human drivers never made mistakes or killed people.

Passing a driving test is utterly trivial. Current cars on the roads are capable of it, to the extent that any car would ever be - they can't be seen to check mirrors, eg, so the test isn't actually applicable.

We're way beyond that stage already. The hard stuff is basically untouched, but urban driving well enough to meet driving test standards is easy.

Would you like to take a taxi driven by a driver that had passed their test that afternoon?

At the minimum you'd expect a Pass Plus certified driver, so the goalposts are moving already.

I think about when I am driving in traffic. I am doing stuff like establishing eye-contact with pedestrians, cyclists, other drivers. Assessing whether they know my intentions and I know theirs. Then there's classic scenarios like a football rolls across the road from between parked cars - probability that a kid chasing it might run out. Someone is in that parked car - are they going to open the door. If you've spent time on the road on a bicycle or motorbike and you're still alive, you've probably got used to assessing stuff like that.

Motorways are probably a better option for automation. But there's still stuff there - like if you've got cars both overtaking and undertaking a middle-lane dope, they might follow the manoeuvre with attempting to both occupy the same space in the middle-lane at the same time.