The anti-driverless car always love to bring up the situation

The pro-driverless car crowd always love to ignore the fact that the autonomous car wont be driverless for decades. A human will still be required to oversee and in case of a failure, take control of the vehicle.

The big problem with this is that people will be taking manual control because the autonomous car will abide by the rules that human drivers like to ignore like keeping a safe distance, not driving in the passing lane, keeping to the speed limit and slowing down in potentially hazardous areas (I.E. roads frequently entered by pedestrians).

Human nature wont change overnight because a pro-tech crowd wills it.

This.

You also dont have to be driving a crazy high performance car to get good braking. Just get some performance pads, rotors, good tyres and maybe some braided brake lines and you can make a Toyota Corolla stop like a sports car. Your 0-100 time will still be crap but 100-0 will be amazing. You dont even need to fit six piston callipers.

You've got to understand your car. Sadly this is something most people never learn. They get in it every day but dont understand where the edge of the envelope is. When I get a new car, I take it to an empty car park and test it out. Most of this testing is about 1/2 an hour of practising parking to make sure I get it right, but I also test braking, turning and accelerating to get used to how the car behaves. I know it sound very yobbish, but it's actually rather sedate with very little tyre smoke. I normally only do one emergency brake test from about 40 KPH (~25 MPH).

Also the first thing I usually upgrade is the brakes. I've currently got Project Mu pads, DBA rotors and APP brake lines on my S15, I did these before getting a bigger turbo. I've thought about getting the 6 piston callipers off of a Skyline (they'll easily fit on my Silvia) but its not really worth it unless you're turning into a hardcore track car.

So, disregarding how the self-driving car decided who it is best to kill in any given situation

This old chestnut needs to die.

Rules for this already exist, it's just that human drivers dont follow them. An autonomous car will be programmed to take the course that causes the least damage and is the most legal. So they would choose a rear end crash over a right angle crash because a rear ender presents the lowest risk of casualties. If you think that veering out of your lane to avoid a rear end crash is a good idea, you completely fail at driving (first in failing to keep a safe distance, secondly in not having the time to check if it's safe to change lanes).

This is already sorted. They dont care that the person to the left is a meth addict and the person in front is a Nobel laureate, they'll take the path that presents the least risk. Beyond this, if the car is already in this situation the programming has failed.

If Google wants to sell autonomous cars, Google should be liable for anything the damned thing does.

So Colt and Armalite should be made responsible for mass shootings because they make guns?

I think firearm restrictions are sensible, but even I have to admit that the problem isn't the people who sell guns, it's the people who use them.

So once again, this is a legal problem that is already sorted. We already have extensive rules to determine who is at fault in an accident and they dont need to be changed for autonomous cars. When it comes down to it, if the driver cant be identified the onus comes back to the vehicles owner.

If you crash your car into a house and do a runner, you cant claim you weren't the driver because you weren't found at the scene. Unless you can nominate another driver who admits responsibility, it will be considered your fault (so be aware who you lend your car to). It will be the same with autonomous cars. For decades after their introduction you will still be required to pay attention to the roads, even though the car is choosing the actions you are still responsible for ensuring the car is doing its job properly and ready to take over if it fails. If it crashes whilst you were managing it, you will have failed your duty of care.

Its the same in Australia.

Truckers are a very powerful union and a lot of them are owner/drivers. This is changing of course, but it's going to be a slow and laborious process. However it will be a very long time before we have fully autonomous trucks.

The perception that Lexus is an American brand is because that's how it started.

Toyota created the Lexus brand to get around the whole "jap-crap" sentiment in America in the 80's and it worked. The reason Lexus hasn't enjoyed the same rise in Europe and Asia is because people there had no issues accepting that Toyota's were quality. You should see the Toyota's you get in Japan like the Mark X, as good as a Lexus but missing the badge.

Its the same with Infiniti and Acura.

The agenda against him comes from BBC's new director of television, Danny Cohen.

Allow me to preface this with the fact I think anyone using the term "leftist" as an insult is a blithering idiot and distrust conservatives as a general rule but if applies to one person, it's Cohen. He's been on a concerted campaign to get rid of people like Clarkson from the BBC and doesn't seem to care what gets harmed in the process. He's implemented a policy at the BBC saying that all panel shows "must" have at least one female presenter and something tells me a token female presenter on Top Gear wouldn't go down too well with him.

However like you said, there are two sides to this and I think there will be fallout from this for months to come. Clarkson will shortly have no reason not to slag off the BBC and reveal the internal machinations and Clarkson isn't exactly the kind of person to keep his opinions to himself.

Actually Top Gear makes about US$225 Million for BBC Worldwide (which gets funnelled back into the BBC as they're the only shareholder). That's about £150 million or 10% of what BBC worldwide makes. Out of the £5 Billion the BBC makes, it's about 3%. If 3% of your budget goes missing, you're going to notice. In a year, without the hosts the Top Gear brand will be next to worthless and just about anyone could pick it up for 45p.

But how this is really going to hurt the BBC is when they go to renegotiate their other contracts. Because they've messed around with the delivery of the last few episodes of Top Gear they've lost faith with other networks. Even extremely popular shows like Doctor Who and Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars) will be affected, less popular shows like Antiques Roadshow will be decimated.

I think Danny Cohen is going to be out of a job in 12 months or so.

The producer is Andy WIlman.

Fifth gear already exists for us car anoraks, we don't really need another (I will say Tiff and Jason do a fantastic job, but cant stand Vicki Butler-Henderson). I'm pretty sure that James May, Richard Hammond, Clarkson and Wilman will come as a package deal for whoever wants to pick them up.

Rumour is that Netflix is looking to pick them up. I kind of hope they do as all other commercial networks are beholden to advertisers and would eventually force the show to become more "advertiser friendly". Half the stuff Clarkson and crew got away with was because the BBC didn't have to answer to Vauxhall (General Motors) Renault or Citroen when the TG presenters slagged them off and I'm pretty sure Clarkson has had nothing nice to say about any Vauxhall. A major part of the appeal Top Gear had was that it was so irreverent, an irreverence that they'd never get away with on a commercial network.

No they aren't.

They're taking a stand against a law they do not support.

it really ticks me off how the right has characterized the ability to be openly racist, sexist, misogynist, transphobic, and homophobic as "freedom and liberty. absolutely disgusting.

This.

My country protects speech, it does not protect hate speech however. I'm not even sure the US would protect hate speech as an inalienable right.

If the KKK or ISIS came into your print shop and asked for some hate speech to be printed up, you'd be within your rights to refuse the job because the job is borderline illegal and distasteful, beyond this, it's also harmful to your business. Its a similar story if someone asked you to print off a large quantity of their own hardcore pornography. The porn is legal, the job is legal, but you do not want your business to become known as a purveyor of adult literature because that would scare away many customers.

Whilst it's not illegal for people to be arseholes, there is no law stating that we have to facilitate their ability to be arseholes.

Since when were the KKK protected?

Same as if the Black Panthers or ISIS came in and asked you to print up some hate speech. You can refuse service as the job they're asking you to do is borderline illegal.

I cannot refuse to serve a Muslim or black person on account of their skin colour or religion, but I can refuse to serve someone for being unruly, disruptive, drunk, argumentative or would harm the good name of my business. That last one is important, refusing to serve people with ginger hair would harm my businesses reputation, not refusing to serve the grand pooba of the KKK would have the same effect.

As someone who did tech support for Macs many years ago, I cant buy them being more robust or reliable.

And this was back in the early 00's where suggesting a Mac had a problem meant Apple sent hired goons to your office. You didn't complain that it took two weeks to get a PSU for an Imac... because it was just better (TM).

Pretty much anything you can get from a Mac these days can be gotten from another manufacturer for less money... Except the wank factor of course.

Welcome to modern society.

The banks addict them to using a card (gotta get those points) but they act all hurt when the merchant raises prices because of credit card fees. Allow all kinds of draconian laws to be created to fight "teh terr'sts" but act like its the end of the world when this is used to curtail something they enjoy.

Hypocrisy isn't just in fashion, it's become a way of life.

This is my complete lack of surprise.

I took one look at the permissions the app needed on Android and figured out that they were collecting data wholesale.

I dont expect them to be nearly as meticulous as the likes of Google in anonymising it. They probably give out your phone number as part of the package and offer to determine your home address for a nominal fee.

Sucks if you're already an Uber fanboy and have given them all your details.