Self-driving cars

I just discovered that Google have realised some videos that really show how revolutionary their self-driving cars will be. Have a look at the blind gentleman in this one, for instance:

It just demonstrates that the current discussions in many countries (where politicians are still in favour of having a human driver in each car who is legally responsible) are awfully silly. What kind of court would hold a blind man responsible for an injury caused by his car? Also, what if there’s nobody in the car (it might for instance be parking itself)?

It’s interesting that reducing the number of traffic injuries seems to be one of the things that are really motivating Google:

Personally I’m really looking forward to getting a self-driving car. It’ll be great to be able to do useful or fun things instead of watching motorway traffic, and it’ll be wonderful to be able to take the car home from a pub or sending the car up to school to get the kids.

I do wonder how self-driving cars will be furnished after a few years. Will they look like old-fashioned train compartments, where the passengers face each other across a table? Or will they look more like a living room, with comfy couches and a telly in the corner? Or perhaps like a caravan, with convertible beds and other useful things?

Also, will people actually want to own self-driving cars or will they just use them as cheap taxis? That would have the advantage that you could send for very different models depending on your journey, e.g., a tiny office-like car for going to work, a bedroom-like car for going to the 8am meeting in London, or a car full of toys for collecting kids from nursery.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that once self-driving cars become ubiquitous, they will dramatically change the way we live.