If the gov'ts and councils that actually build and maintain the roads charged the costs to the vehicles that actually do the damage there would be much less of a problem. HGVs should have weight taxes, they rip up the roads. I think the percentage of gov't revenue that comes from fines is miniscule after the cost of policing those fines is taken in to account.

" The car can be trusted to drive within its own limits.."

That is not the correct way to look at it, there are parts of London where it is hard enough to try and navigate lanes without having cars going at stupid speeds.

Just because the car can drive at 50mph doesn't mean it should, that would cause problems for non-computer controlled cars, bicycles, horses, pedestrians etc.

If the car is driving down a thin residential London road with a van parked and a gap behind the van, will it slow to 5mph so as to avoid running over anyone who might step out from behind the van? ( example road http://goo.gl/maps/wu4i6 ).

Would you say this to pedestrians? Because cycling is safer than walking for experienced (few hundred miles) cyclists.

Well thank god for that, how could terrorists spread their message of hate and terror without Facebook's cooperation, thank you Facebook, from terrorists everywhere.

And that goes for the politicians and the news media too, thank you for scaring the shit out of people, rather than pointing out the low odds of being killed by terrorists, the terrorists would be nothing without you. You help to put the 'terror' in to terrorism.

If you knew the govt was killing Jewish people, coloured people, gays, unionists etc, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Non-Jewish ) you'd think hard about adding yourself to the list, most people don't wish to be martyrs.

I agree, and that's why I use ghostery, it blocks tracking and allows any ad's that don't track.... Which seems to be none of them, but that's their problem to sort out isn't it.

There is a description box which you could put serials in to, although I don't know if that can be changed at a later date, that would be a flaw if true.

Conclusion, running linux makes you rich.

The UK police have regular bike registering events where you can take your bike and register it for free, otherwise the service is commercial and costs money ( http://www.bikeregister.com/ ).

Wiggle.co.uk simply put the serial number on the new bike check list which came with the bike, so all the customer has do do is keep that list, Can't say if other bike merchants do the same.

it's simply rewarding honest behavior.

No, it rewards blagging, it rewards *acting* honest, regardless of whether the person is actually being honest.

It also gives the police more scope than they should have, for example sometimes police will let people off for drink driving, because they get sweet-talked, that's not right and it isn't a fair system where the people best at persuasion and brown-nosing get let off.

within 5 years, the first (partially) self-driving cars will become available.

Partially self-driving cars are already common: Cruise control, ABS, traction control, parallel parking assist, lane assist, auto-braking etc.

I would expect rich people to be better informed and more likely to let others take the risk of the early technology.

I would expect the poorer countries to be more likely to allow the risk especially countries that already have atrocious road safety records - it would be easier for these vehicles to be safer than the bad drivers.

requires predicting when the majority of the world will become "developed", which may very well be never.

"developed" is an ever moving target, the poor people in developing countries already have technologies that we didn't have 50 years ago. And it is often the west that prevents countries from developing by controlling banking and allowing futures contracts.

Unlike a human, an algorithm can control the speed and breaking distance to 1 inch from the next car during an emergency stop

Unless the car in front has better brakes.

Your comment is fallacious because

is wrong. The police had other options, like shoot the tyres, shoot the engine, block the car, use spike strips, smash the windows, use bean bag guns, use taser, use pepper spray etc.

They say there was a child in the car, that child most likely just saw their mother being shot to death by police, do you really think this was the best option?

So, given the choice between disabling the car, boxing her in and arresting her or just shooting her, they shot her. How the fuck is that ok? That's called murder where I come from.