Well humans don't walk on the motorway for a start. On ordinary roads they use crossing if available. Either way we were around a long time before cars and we still have to get to places. Most likely, as with drivers, 'idiots' are responsible for the minority of accidents, but the idiots make the news. Just not concentrating, using a phone while crossing or misjudging the traffic can all cause mistakes - and of course many fatalities are children.

When it comes to tons of steel travelling at speed vs us mere soft beings of flesh and bone, it's obvious who will come off worst. I don't think there's any real comparison - though carelessness from both can cause accidents, the driver is in charge of a lethal weapon, the pedestrian is not.

Well unthinkable now, but perhaps not in the future. The next generation always look back at the previous and laugh at their quaintness or low tech stuff, after a few centuries they will look back and wonder "what the flip were they thinking!?".

In my experience humans do walk on motorways, and don't use crossings when available. People were around a long time before cars but where there's a whole infrastructure built around avoiding the cars and getting to where the pedestrian wants just as quickly*, then they simply ignore it, there's something wrong.


*Yup, some places are "designed for pedestrians" but only in name.

I must admit that I don't always use crossings. I use them on busy roads, but on a quiet road, I will cross where I want to, after checking the oncoming traffic. But I have seen people scooting across main roads without checking at all.

As Cynwulf hinted, pedestrian infrastructure is not always well-adapted to the people it is supposed to serve. People resent having to make a big detour to use a bridge or an underpass, and underpasses are often frightening places. So they put up with the dangers of crossing on the surface.

My pet peeve is "shared space". When you're over 70, you don't move so fast and I never feel safe using a space that cars can use as well.

I'm not sure who these people are, walking on motorways? Drivers who have broken down perhaps?

The "whole infrastructure built around avoiding the cars" would be great if it actually existed. I live on a busy road in a built up area and there is not a single pedestrian crossing on it. I know that in the big cities they're practically every second lamp post, but not here...

As I typed, pedestrian infrastructure is not always as it ought to be. Still. I doubt very much that road injuries are caused by people using sense to cross roads. As things stand most places seem to be set up in such a way that a pedestrian has right of way almost anywhere (I now feel like googling motorway pedestrian deaths in the UK to find out whether drivers were prosecuted).
As an extreme example: It is almost impossible to drive a car in the UK if one takes the mindset that around any blind, or semi-blind bend somebody is sitting in the road (which is perfectly legal) -- it makes A road driving so slow one may as well walk. I've tried driving like that and, oddly enough, I don't own a car any more.

Basically, I'm not going to use "impaired or tired or whatever drivers" as an excuse for tolerating the presence on the road ... hurtling directly towards me at 60 miles an hour because it "can't see" my white car and its driver is texting ... of a thing that is about to kill me and my wife and my four kids and my dog. (I'm especially upset about the dog.)

Too bad that you're willing to spend gadzillions of your dollars to perfect some automatic vehicle so that you won't have to pay people to drive them. Because, really, that's what it comes down to in the end. A truck driver makes about $50-70K per year, but if we could replace him or her with a robot, then that truck (loaded with 10,000 gallons of gasoline) could drive itself ... uhh, right through the walls of your house at dinnertime. Boom. Oops. (But the good news is, we saved money on labor costs.)

But when all the taxi drivers and delivery men have lost their jobs, who's going to pay the income tax that they once paid in order to finance the out-of-work benefits that they will now need?

VAT will just go up to 30% "emergency rate" to cover it.
People will blame "benefit scroungers" for increased prices and things will go on as normal.
The fatalities will be put down to "reckless behaviour" on the part of pedestrians.

The Highways Act 1980 states otherwise:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/...ys-and-streets
Driverless cars are still a long way off, but driverless lorries, perhaps even using their own special lanes, could be a reality a lot sooner in some countries - for better or for worse.

Here in the UK driverless trains have been talked about before: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17510918

The objective is to permanently dispose of, what is seen by some as, an overpaid work force who are members of trade unions and thus prone to strike action. Improving efficiency or safety is not a factor in this case, as ever this is about reducing operating costs and boosting profits.

They're not "wilfully obstructing" if they get up when they see a car though.
I take your point but I really would not want to have to spend the time and money in court after killing somebody who was in the road around a blind bend.

I'm not too sure if I prefer robot cars and trucks vs human operated vehicles.

Being a motorcycle rider and a bicycle rider.

I am kinda on the fence just waiting to see what happens with all of this tech.

I hope the tech does not turn out like the asbestos tech industry and lead pipe industry of past ages. Sometimes, tech backfires.

My big concern is the move to a surveillance state. Let's assume that Google, etc. track our every move via GPS (note here. I work odd hours and Google maps is great for avoiding traffic). At a minimum cars will need to be tied into the current road infrastructure (traffic lights, traffic incidents).

At the same time Amazon can track our every movement through their stores (GPS on the phone again? Credit cards?).

I saw a futuristic TV drama (okay, fiction) where the cops had the ability to control a person's car when they spotted an infringement. At this point fiction morphs into reality.

Just really jotting down a few random thoughts. I haven't really joined the dots yet but the initial picture does not look too good. I agree though that this is 20-50 years off. So I may may spent the last few years of my life being watched. Suddenly a dystopian future looms large...

Oh, it will be watched. In the UK the population has already been declared terrorists by our government so our internet history must be tracked. Apparently, according to my government I am a criminal with no right to privacy.
Any automated vehicle would, of course, be tracked by such authoritarian scum.

In the Book of Revelation, the author envisages at one point a society ruled by a "Great Beast" who requires everybody to be tattooed with his mark. If you don't have the mark, you can't buy or sell anything. It's sobering to think that we could probably enforce such a system with present day technology and it wouldn't need any tattoos either.

Already more and more financial transactions take place electronically, with smartphones acting as wallets. In fact in London you can't use physical money on the buses any more. Coining money is expensive; governments may soon decide that the expense isn't worth it. And once all transactions are electronic, it will be possible for computers to trawl the patterns of expenditure automatically and continuously and flag up anything that looks unusual. This isn't hypothetical. Existing programs for analysing "big data" could do it. And if they thought you were a security risk, they could simply cancel your accounts and you wouldn't be able to buy so much as a loaf of bread.

And your friends would know that if they gave you food to save you from starving, the computers would flag up their changed expenditure patterns and they'd become unpersons too. I don't think it will happen any time soon, but it already could. We have the technology in place

I don't think driverless vehicles is a huge factor in the "surveillance state". Surveillance, data mining, profiling, etc will still happen regardless, even if drivers remain fully in control behind the wheel. Law enforcement remotely taking control of the vehicle, locking the occupants inside and stopping it (or driving them to the police station) would likely be seen as a very good thing by the general, law abiding, public - rather than an infringement of anyone's rights.

But, driverless vehicles or not, surveillance technology is simply being sold as toys and gadgets and packaged up as a convenience or a 'vital' means of communication or social interaction. Peer pressure pushes the people towards owning and using these devices in order to belong and find common ground.

In the UK we accepted the IPA 2016 because we've already accepted being spied on for decades. The IPA simply formalised and reinforced many existing powers and introduced a few more. And of course many here assume that government sanctioned spying is absolutely necessary to combat terrorism/criminal activity - or are just apathetic/blissfully ignorant about the whole thing. If MPs went out among the public and told a sample of 100 people that the such powers would prevent more 7/7 type incidents most would simply resign themselves to a "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" line of reasoning.