SHAPPS’ ROBOT CARS GET A RED LIGHT FROM TORY DRIVERS

SELF-DRIVING cars may be coming down the highway soon but not all MPs fancy the ride.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, with his characteristic Tigg er ish enthusiasm, announced that hands-free technology to keep vehicles in lane could be permitted by the end of the year.

The change is seen as a move towards fully automated cars and lorries that ministers claim will be safer and, for reasons never quite explained, greener.

“I certainly won’t be buying one,” a sceptical Tory backbencher said. Opponents are dismayed by the way ministers and officials are captivated by science fiction-style visions of the future. One wacky plan seriously discussed in Whitehall involved driverless vehicles dropping their owners off in town and city centres before heading off to manoeuvre themselves into compact and human-free car parks.

Not everyone is convinced that new technology guarantees safety, as the lives lost in the trials of smart motorways testify.

Sceptics fear there is not enough debate about the potential human and political costs of the addiction to technological “progress”.

People who drive taxis, lorries and ambulances for a living – and those who enjoy the simple pleasure of motoring – may be less enamoured with the idea.They are voters too. The Luddites, protesters who broke up textile machines in the early 19th century, ultimately failed in their attempt to halt industrialisation.

But thoughtful Conservatives know that excessively rapid change in the name of progress does come with downsides.

It’s worth remembering that the first fatality of the railway age was aTory MP.William Huskisson died from his injuries after he was hit by Stephenson’s Rocket.

At the time, the tragedy was widely seen as a warning that transport technology of the future can be dangerous.