LETTERS

摘要

Readers raise interesting points about a future with autonomous cars (Letters, 5 March). An ideal with only ownerless autonomous cars may be reached eventually, but car-makers already have a strategy of increasing semi-autonomy to boost their products' appeal for owner-drivers. There will be a period when all sorts of cars coexist. I hope consumer pressure leads to us seeing intermingling of pedestrians and cars in shared town spaces; collaborative driving where cars, vans and lorries give way to pedestrians and cyclists and each other without emotion; and "trains" of slipstreaming vehicles parting to allow others to overtake or exit. Who will own the cars - the manufacturers or the energy corporations, perhaps? And what difference will they make to new housing developments when you simply summon a car as needed, not park it outside? Imaginative estates could resemble villages, with otherwise impossibly narrow child-friendly roads, village greens, proper communities and so on. This will be the first chance to end the domination of our built environment by the car. Even if there are some downsides, and there will be, bring it on.