What price safety?
We've been told that autonomous cars will be safer for other road users. Their sensors are better and their reactions faster and more reliable than those of human drivers.
Now it sounds like the industry is beginning to go back on that promise. We're hearing that autonomous vehicles will mean 'the barricades go up'; that pedestrian safety is 'difficult, expensive' and 'cannot be dealt with by today's technology'.
So which is it? A driverless utopia or autogeddon? I suspect car-makers are too unwilling to spend the money required to give us the former, so are beginning to soften us up for the latter. You do want that fleet of robot vehicles bringing you cheap deliveries, right? So stay behind those barricades.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
