How the driverless car will liberate us all (except smokers, of course)

I was listening to the radio the other morning to hear people complaining about the huge cuts in the number of traffic police patrolling English roads. This meant that drivers would disobey motoring laws with impunity, they said. They would babble away on their mobile phones, unfasten their seat belts, and generally break the rules of the road in the knowledge that they were most unlikely to get caught. The only things left for them to fear would be speed cameras. As a result, road deaths, of which there were already more than 1,700 in Britain last year, would go shooting up. A grim outlook indeed. But wait, there is hope on the horizon. This is the exciting prospect of the driverless car.

The Americans have already been trying out the driverless car on the roads of California, but now trials are to begin here in Britain; and one of the four places where they are going to happen is Milton Keynes, near to where I live.