Driver training and vehicle maintenance is the key to road fatalities

"Drone cars will cut accident rates" is what the headlines scream. Sure - they might but we have no proof of that yet.
What we do have proof of is that proper driving training cuts accident rates. I'll use America as my baseline because this is where I live at the moment, and in this country the driving test is laughably easy. In some states the theory test is open-book (meaning they give you the answers) yet people still fail it. And the practical test can be 5 minutes in deserted suburbia. There's no training or testing for motorway driving, driving at night, in snow, on ice, or in the rain. There's no training or testing for driving in congested city centers. Driving licenses are handed out like free candy.
This is reflected in the driver fatality numbers for America. You can't just look at the number of accidents - it's high because there's a large population. You need to look at the number of accidents per-capita. This helps give a meaningful number. Even more meaningful is the accident rate per-capita-per-mile-driven but that's a harder number to come by. So we'll use the number of deaths per 100,000 people. In America, this averages 10.6 deaths for every 100,000.
Looking at Germany, where speed is of the essence, vast stretches of the autobahn are still unrestricted, and driver training is considerably more involved (and expensive) than it is in America. Their rate is 4.3 deaths per 100,000 people - less than half that of America.
But we can do better - the Nordic countries, where getting a driving license can take up to a year and involves training and testing in all weather conditions and times of day. Norway - 3.8 per 100,000. Sweden - 2.8 per 100,000.
These numbers don't tell the whole story though. The condition of the vehicles also has a large part to play. In America, the average age of a car on the road is nearly 12 years. That's the AVERAGE, meaning there's a considerable number of old bangers still driving around with drum brakes and no airbags. In Europe the average car age is 9 years. In Sweden it's less than 5 years.
So the key to reducing road deaths is pretty obvious - better driver training and safer vehicles. I'm sure there's still a lot of people who look forward to the day they can get into their soulless automated minicab and be driven everywhere by an AI that is programmed to sacrifice their lives if the need arises, but this driver prefers to use traditional methods. I do occasional driver safety and top-up courses. Everyone should, but of course barely anyone does.
And that's the real reason drone cars are coming - because drivers have become too stupid to take responsibility for their own actions.

There are too many 'stop' signs in America

Coming from Europe, where drivers are generally much better trained than they are in America, we're sort of used to looking out for other vehicles, and giving priority where it's due (although I still don't like Priorite A Droit - that makes no sense if you're on a main road).
But here in America, we're plagued with 'stop' signs everywhere. In my neighborhood they even put in a roundabout then put 4-way stop signs on it. That destroys the entire concept of a roundabout (better traffic flow, less waiting).
My problem with 'stop' signs is that it increases wear and tear on vehicles, it reduces gas-mileage, and the signs themselves are placed with so little logic that they're easy to miss. Many of the streets where I live have vast long stretches with no 'stop' signs, then at one intersection - for no apparent reason - there is a 4-way stop. These intersections look no different from any of the dozen or more leading up to them - it's like the city just decided "here's a good place to mess with people".
My other problem with 'stop' signs is that we're expected to come to a complete stop at every one, every time. Even on a deserted road in the middle of the night. To be honest, I've given up with those situations. If it's patently obvious that there's no other traffic around, I just go straight through them now. And I don't feel bad about it because I'm exercising due care and attention because I'm watching the side roads as I approach to see if there are any vehicles, bikes or pedestrians. If not, then there's literally no reason at all why I should stop other than the arbitrary 'stop' sign placed there by a city that doesn't understand how traffic flows.
This has become so out-of-control here in America that we have 'stop' signs in the most idiotic places now. The picture below shows a street near where I work. That's a corner there. Nothing more than a bend in the road. I've circled the 'stop' sign. You'll notice there's only one. This makes absolutely no sense. Nobody observes this sign any more because there's zero point in it being there.

Now I can already feel people getting on their high horse about breaking the law, but let's be honest - show me someone who says they've never broken a traffic law and I'll show you a liar. You / we all do it whether you want to admit it or not. Whether it's rolling through a 'stop' sign, jumping a yellow light, going faster than the speed limit, not using your indicators, not using your fog lights appropriately - literally EVERYONE breaks traffic laws.

Uber suspends all its drone cars after a crash

One of Uber's drone Volvos has had a pretty bad crash where it ended up on its side. It was in self-driving mode at the time. The crash happened when another car failed to yield and Uber's software couldn't compensate and kept going.
Chalk this up to the growing list of crashes involving cars that we're told can't crash, and will make the roads safer. I don't care if this was caused by another driver, the software should have contingency code to deal with the fact it's operating a 2-ton car in a world where it is surrounded by human drivers.
To-date they've had problem with pedestrians, other drivers, stop signs, parked trucks, lane closures, debris in the road and now other vehicles failing to yield.
Fortunately this time nobody was killed.
Uber suspends self-driving cars after Arizona crash

New F1 season, new Hamilton complaints, new arms race between the FIA and the engineers

Regular readers will know two things about me and F1. First, I love the sport no matter what it's detractors have to say. And second, I think Hamilton is quick to blame everyone and everything but himself when stuff doesn't go his way. It's never his fault. It's the team, the pit crew, the chassis, the tyres, the suspension - and this time it's the floor of the car.
Could it be that he's just not the amazing driver everyone thinks he is?
Anyway the F1 season kicked off in Australia this weekend with some good racing, some interesting incidents and failures, and with Albert Park possibly being slapped with the mother of all FIA fines for letting the crowd on to the track while the cars were still present.
The cars look so much better this year than they've done in the last few years - lower, wider, better-looking aero, smarter wings, more doodads around the radiator intakes, and the raked front wing looks so much better. Of course this was yet another attempt by the FIA to slow the cars down, and as always happens, the drivers and teams have found ways to make the cars faster again.
As usual at the beginning of the season, the arms race between the engineers and the FIA is in full-swing. Right now it's the 'whale tail' T-wing up on top of the shark's fin behind the airbox. It's an "unregulated area" of the car from the FIA's point of view, so the aero guys instantly found a way to capitalize on that.
I expect that particular feature will be ruled out by the second or third race, just like when Brawn Racing had their blown double-diffuser a few years back.
It will be fun to see how the technical regulations change during the season. It'll be fun to watch everyone complain about Verstappen's blocking (because - you know - he's a race driver). And it'll be fun to play the Hamilton drinking game where you drink every time he complains.

Tesla Model S autopilot crashes. Again.

I'll just leave this here. A Tesla model S, a couple of weeks ago outside Dallas. A lane-shift comes up, the autopilot doesn't see it and slams into the bright yellow barrier. Airbags deployed, a lot of smoke, car comes to a total stop. The insurance company wrote it off. This is another case of autopilot missing a really obvious obstruction or change of circumstance. Not only did it not alert the driver (who should have been paying attention anyway) but it did absolutely nothing to avoid the barrier. Never slowed down, never steered.

But tell me again how accidents will become a thing of the past with drone cars ....

The exploded left-front wheel, left-side damage and all the detonated airbags:

The full sad, sorry story is over at Reddit for everyone to enjoy: My Tesla hit a barrier while I was on autopilot

How to ACTUALLY drive in the snow

After the last couple of weeks of how not to drive in the snow, this week a short primer on what you should be doing. This is true for snow, ice and wet weather, but also holds true for dry roads.
It's simple: let your tyres do one thing at once and you'll be fine.
Brake in a straight line, then let off the brakes and corner, then as you're leaving the corner, begin to accelerate.
This doesn't seem too complicated but I'd wager 95% of drivers don't understand this. You see if you brake and turn at the same time, you're asking the tyres to do two things instead of one. The forces on the contact patch become divided between the braking force and the cornering force, and both become compromised. You can't brake as efficiently and you can't turn as efficiently.
The same is true for accelerating out of a corner - if you plant the right pedal half way through the corner, again you've compromised the tyre's ability to do its job.
This is why ABS anti-lock brakes exist. In the good old days, people would lock up the brakes and try to steer. Once the wheels have locked, the tyres are compromised and they're not even gripping properly for braking. Turning the wheel does nothing at this point. ABS prevents that by allowing the wheels to keep turning meaning more of a chance of the braking force being able to slow you down and more of a chance of a cornering force allowing you to turn. It's compromised because you're braking and turning at the same time, but it's better than nothing.
This whole principle is why - if you start to get out of control in a corner - any corner in any condition - the last thing you should do is touch the brakes. Once a car starts to skid, the contact patch has been compromised and if you hit the brakes, you're going to destroy any last chance of the tyre gripping. Take your foot off the throttle gently and steer into the skid until you feel grip again. ONLY once you have grip should you be using the brakes.
So to snow, ice and wet weather : when you come to a corner, brake in a straight line. If it's snowing or icy you should have snow tyres on which means you'll be able to control your car slowing down in a straight line. Once you're down to a decent speed, let off the brakes and turn into the corner smoothly. If you've done it right, there will be no side-slip and no drama.
Driving in snow is not inherently dangerous - it's drivers who don't know what they're doing that make it dangerous. Drivers with summer tyres, bald tyres, drivers who are texting, reading, eating, screaming at their kids. If driving in snow was somehow dangerous and accident-ridden, then countries like Sweden, Norway and Greenland would have the highest accident rates in the world. But because they train their drivers to drive in the snow, they actually have some of the lowest accident rates in the world - much lower than the US for example. Using road fatalities per 100,000 head of population, the average annual rate for those countries is Sweden (2.8), Norway (3.8), Greenland (3.5) and America (10.6). Driving in snow is NOT dangerous if you know what you're doing.