ISIBAISIA: The Next Big Thing in Transport, certainly in London Transport, is not robot cars; it is human-driven electric scooters.
Today, outside a local Afghan shop (the same one as at the other end of the second link above), photoed by me, with permission:
The photos were a bit better this time, and the vegetables came out much better.
In this podcast-with-Patrick I expressed scepticism about robot cars coming to your city any time very soon, but omitted to mention electric scooters, which are already here. Missed a trick there.
See also this robot-car-sceptic piece that says Self-Driving Cars Are Taking Longer to Build Than Everyone Thought. Which is not quite right. Self-driving cars are taking longer to build than everyone except me thought.
Even when they do arrive, robot cars will start out as just a robotised version of the same bad idea, which is people, who are not that big, meandering about in metal boxes which are very big indeed. Electric scooters take up a fraction of the space of these metal boxes and are easily stored at work, and equally easily carried on trains or buses, unlike the big metal boxes which are a nightmare to store and impossible to carry around with you. Electric scooters are, in particular, also much better than bikes. In a decade they will be everywhere, in giant flocks. Just you wait and see.
For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure that the brand of scooter this guy was kind enough to demonstrate to me was the Inokim QUICK 3 super +. I’m going by comparing my photos with the imagery at the website, and going by what the he said it would do, and what he paid for it.
It looked really solid.
It is presently illegal to ride these things in public places in the UK, although the law is clearly much flouted. They are t0o much like a vehicle to be permitted on footpaths, and not enough like a vehicle to be allowed on roads, essentially. The law may change soon.
Yes, he mentioned the legal position. Hoping, as you say, that it may soon change.
Would just treating them like bikes not do the trick? Or would that have hidden snafus attached?