[Dangerous Doug]

Tommy: Sound Utopic, with 250 SDC's zipping down a freeway in a tight-packed formation, rearranging based upon exit needs. Then a deer emerges from the side of the road (or an Elk, or a Bison...) and catastrophe strikes as the SDC's reaction time isn't sufficient and a major pileup occurs, leaving passengers injured, killed. Engineers recode. Lawyers begin to salivate.

SDC's may seem like a panacea for overcrowded highways, but there will always be problems.

Nevertheless, you're right. When I think of the logical end to the SDC development, I see myself as the lone, unwanted gasoline-powered vehicle driven by a human on the road.

On the other hand, SDC's won't be cheap, so does driving one become the sole right of the privileged class? What will an SDC do when non-SDC driver's act hostile?

*13*: Funny that the generation that was driven everywhere by their Mom in a giant SUV is now interested in a car-free society. I had to ride my bike or my skateboard to get around---another fun, wind-in-your-hair man and machine experience.

I guess Rush with their "Red Barchetta" science fiction song was not too far off the mark.

DD