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Brit transport pundit Christian Wolmar on why the driverless car is on a 'road to nowhere'
A multi-billion dollar hype built on gullibility, says railway man
By Andrew Orlowski - 11 Jan 2018

Dive beneath the hype and the dry ice of CES, and it becomes apparent. The connected cars and electric cars being shown off in Las Vegas this week are not self-driving cars; and it has proved a lot harder to make an autonomous car than to sell the idea to an AI-obsessed think tank.

Of the many obvious-in-retrospect reasons for self-driving cars to fail, one has not seemed obvious. Christian Wolmar, the author and broadcaster, calls it the Holborn Problem. And it goes like this.

If self-driving cars are to be considered at all safe, then they will be programmed to come to a halt as pedestrians enter the road space. In many places, however, such as London's Holborn Underground station at rush hour, pedestrians are typically spilling over into the road en masse.

The self-driving cars would sit there for hours. To solve this, we can either lower the safety standards, or else introduce draconian pedestrian restrictions. The open spaces that cities like to encourage would end as the barricades go up. And foot movement would need to be enforced with Singapore-style authoritarianism.

He’s written a short book, a monograph, that’s a blast to the autonomous vehicle hype.

Wolmar thinks the self-driving car is a ludicrous tech nerd fantasy, one that’s only been indulged by clickbait-chasing journalists who recycle the press releases and don’t ask tough questions. Or hardly any questions at all.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/11/christian_wolmar_interview_selfdriving_cars/

Christian Wolmar's book is offered here:

http://londonpublishingpartnership.co.uk/driverless-cars/