Self-driving car
"so what did you do before self-driving cars?"
"we just drove 'em ourselves!"
"wow, no one died that way?"
"oh no, millions of people died"
The other day I found myself driving behind a self-driving car. Selfishly, I wish that I could say that I figured that out by observing the unusual behavior of the car on the road, but on the long stretch of the mostly straight road and over the period of about 5 red traffic lights, the car behaved exactly as others on the road. The only thing that gave it away was... the label on the rear bumper.
I honestly wish that I could drive around behind the car a bit longer, but even in the short time that I had with the car, I did observe it in an ambivalent situation. The green signal was on for it, the pedestrian light was red, there were a couple of pedestrians standing on the sidewalk. It's one of those situations that I personally hate as a driver and tend to err on the side of caution. And that's exactly what the car did: it stopped, waited and only then proceeded once it made sure that the pedestrians were not crossing the road. Granted, I can't say exactly whether it was the driver in the self-driving car that has triggered the stop or the car itself, but I was happy with the behavior either way.
I hear a lot about self-driving cars being "freaky". Freaky is driving on the streets of California. People speed here, frequently change lanes, cut-off, don't use turn signals, don't give way... Just the other night I had a pedestrian cross an 8-lane street right in front of my car, in pitch darkness, with no reflective clothing. I just saw a shadow of him/her at the last moment... With such a high stress associated with driving here, I honestly wish for the era of self-driving cars to come sooner.