Yet another piece of science fiction that looks like it might one day come true – the self-driving car will make its commercial debut at a trade fair in Hanover in April. As some of you will know, this project originated in one of those DARPA challenges, and form what I can see the Germans don’t expect to be selling the car as much as to be selling the technology that makes it work. But if the technology works, can commercial deployment be far off?

Of course there is always the issue of consumer perceptions. Evidence from public reactions to things like railway accidents prove conclusively that the the public always thinks that a transport system is less safe if they are not driving, even if the statistics point massively in the opposite direction.