DRIVER-LESS CARS

IT SEEMS members of the fairer sex were the first victims to be killed by these newfangled motoring machines.

In 1869, scientist Mary Ward fell out of a steam-powered vehicle and was killed under its wheels.

No luck of the Irish for Mary. Then in 1896, Brigitte Driscoll died as the result of being hit by a petrolpowered vehicle.

She walked into its path while it was travelling at 6.4kph and giving a demonstration in the grounds of Crystal Palace in London.

Now, just this week Elaine Herzberg 49, of Temple Arizona, was the first pedestrian killed by an Uber selfdrive Volvo, probably with a hybrid engine.

Before this, in 2016, a male owner in a Tesla Model S was killed in his vehicle when its semi-autonomous autopilot system drove him under a semitrailer.

Where else of course, but in the US where the best and worst news seems to come from.

Now, I don’t want to frighten you all, but here I was thinking one day the lady at the Transport Office may tell me nicely she cannot renew my licence on health or eyesight grounds.

“No worries, I will just get my wife or a neighbouring P-plater to take me in my new self-drive Tesla so at least one of us has some kind of a licence, while I sit back and sip coffee,” I will say.

Surely by then these self-drive cars will be able to negotiate our notorious Toowoomba round-a-bouts with safety and aplomb?

On current observation, many drivers seem to have no idea of road rules.

Will the new technology make or break such drivers? Hope you can find out before I have to and please let us all know.

PETER KNOBEL, Toowoomba