Pit stop for Hammond’s plan to take trip in driverless car – because Tories fear embarrassment
… and then the driverless car fell over a cliff.
It’s nice to see that Philip Hammond was prevented from taking a trip in one of the driverless cars he wants to be all over our roads by 2021 – not because they’re incredibly dangerous and could kill him, but because photos of such an event might be embarrassing in the run-up to the Budget speech on Wednesday.
According to the Torygraph:
“The Chancellor wants fully driverless vehicles on the UK’s roads by 2021 but he admitted yesterday he had never been in one and intended to remedy that during an official visit on Monday”:
Chancellor is going to be a passenger in a driverless car in the West Midlands tomorrow
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) November 19, 2017
“But aides apparently wary of photographs which could be used as metaphors for a ‘driverless’ Government just days before Wednesday’s Budget have insisted Mr Hammond will not be allowed to use one of the vehicles.”
Too late!
Good metaphor for how the rest of us have felt since June last year https://t.co/oSi7pvFrqD
— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) November 19, 2017
Is being a passenger in a driverless car a metaphor for being a member of the Conservative Cabinet? https://t.co/cciKl0I2r1
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) November 19, 2017
“A Downing Street source told the Daily Telegraph ‘he is not going to go in a driverless car’.”
Is that what Jeremy Clarkson is doing with himself these days (apart from adverts for net-based TV)?
Jeremy Clarkson: I was almost killed in a driverless car https://t.co/I6rx7FnVRs pic.twitter.com/49gabmQFV0
— The Independent (@Independent) November 19, 2017
In all honesty, one supposes Clarkson’s input would depend on his personal opinion of the Chancellor.
Tory that he is, he’d probably advise against taking the trip.
But the rest of us know that the Budget speech next week will be a car crash for the whole of the UK. The economy is already a train wreck thanks to the threat of Brexit and seven years of childish Tory policies, and Hammond will do nothing to make it worse.
Downing Street and the Treasury should have let him get in the car.
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I see Clarkson was only “almost” killed in one of these cars. Shame.
This constant cost cutting of mere mortal chauffeurs was a step to far even for this idiot government to commit political suicide in a crash. The level of techno safety needed on the UK roads and its lunatic drivers will be to far advanced at this stage for computers to handle.
Fits in neatly with how they drive the economy, thinking the invisible hand of the market is at the controls. Chaos management.
Why the rush for driverless cars? £unacy, in my opinion; I do’t see the need but furthermore, it is not like driverless trains that merely have to deal with a single track, road vehicles have to deal with other road vehicles and the most unpredictable entities of all; people! Personally, I don’t see it, I don’t see the need and I don’t see the benefit. If the idea is to have fewer cars on the road, what is needed are fewer journeys that necessitate long distance travel, which will require less fuel and as a result, be less harmful to our ecosystem. Out of town shopping centres, schools that are not local and long commutes to work all contribute to what could be seen as unnecessary travel but we have choice in schooling and few of us can afford to live anywhere near where we work. There is no single solution but I don’t see driverless cars as part of that, not to mention the unemployment it will cause and why would you want to take a train, or bus, when you can have a robot chauffeur take you to work and back?