Driverless cars get green light in UK

Women are expected to benefit the most because almost a third do not have a licence, compared with just one in seven men.Others likely to gain include the disabled, the elderly and even children, who could be put in a so-called robocar at home and sent to school without an adult at the wheel.Transport minister […]

Women are expected to benefit the most because almost a third do not have a licence, compared with just one in seven men.
Others likely to gain include the disabled, the elderly and even children, who could be put in a so-called robocar at home and sent to school without an adult at the wheel.
Transport minister Claire Perry said: “I have a vision of the school-run driverless car where you wave your children off to school and they come back at 3.30.”
Ministers are to announce the trials on Wednesday following a six-month study into the practical, safety and legal issues.
It concluded there was “no barrier to testing driverless technology on UK roads”.
For many, the idea of self- driving cars is like something from a sci-fi movie.
But much of the technology is already fitted to modern cars, which use sensors and computers to park themselves, keep in lane, brake automatically, avoid collisions and for ‘intelligent cruise control’, which allows a car to vary its speed in line with the flow of traffic.
The big leap forward is putting these elements together in a vehicle that can safely navigate and ‘think’ for itself by using a combination of lasers and scanners to read the road, other vehicles, pedestrians and its surroundings.