Driverless cars & trains

[RobertInOntario]

We recently had our auto show here in Toronto and there was some talk at the show and in the news about self-driving cars. This has been annoying me for several reasons -- one is frankly that I enjoy driving and this would take away all the fun! Another is that self-driving cars are supposed to be safer (because the technology can regulate the distance that the cars are apart, etc.) but I can think of several instances where I can't imagine it working, or at least the driver would still have to be partly driving the car.

For example, a driver has a good chance of discerning the difference between a child playing on the sidewalk verses a child running from the sidewalk onto the road. How is GPS software going to be able to discern what a child on the sidewalk is going to do? A driver could see the child on the sidewalk, then slow down and take precautions. I can think of other examples too where human judgment should be safer than GPS technology.

There is also talk of driver-less commuter trains!

Just wondering if anyone else has any thoughts on this.

Thanks, Rob