Round here, we have many roads which are single tracks, with vegetation encroaching from both sides that brushes your car as you drive. The edges often have hidden soft patches, puddles often disguise potholes, and all the other delights of such roads.
I'd be amazed if a self-drive vehicle developed in California could cope. On top of that, all the issues of negotiating who should do what when someone comes from the other direction! Or a farmer is cutting the hedgerow with a giant flail. Or a single, almost invisible strand of elastic has been stretched across the road for cattle crossing.
And, by gosh, do all the sensors work reliably in horizontal gale force rain?
Just in case it doesn't sound like it, I do enjoy living and driving here!
Self-drive that works anywhere, reliably, has lots of attraction. But until then, we'll need some sort of less-than-perfect self-drive technology. The older among us who learned to drive on a manual gearbox car, many years ago, can probably cope. If the car says "Take over", we can. But I see an upcoming generation who will have very little real driving experience. Taking over will be difficult for them. (Not that dynamic taking over is a sensible approach. Expecting any driver to grab the wheel and start driving within seconds is not a good idea.)
It might actually be better to concentrate on driver assistance and monitoring. My own car has adaptive cruise control - and I use it quite a lot. Perhaps surprisingly, I think I am even more aware of speed limits because of it. And I can concentrate on the rest of driving far more because I rarely need to look at the speedo. But there are many things which can catch it out. Like hidden dips where you lose the vehicle ahead. Or someone slowing to turn off a main road into a turn lane.
