"The car has over a million hours of driving experience," he added kindly, as I peered nervously around. The steering wheel was turning one way and then the other like the keys on a pianola, the pedals drifting up and down. "The first few days, I was a bit twitchy. Then I realised: all the other cars on the road? They’re the ones driven by idiots. People on phones, people who can’t see through the screen because the blower’s out, people who just want to get home in a hurry. They do all this totally insane crap all the time. This car? This car doesn’t. It’s the most boring chauffeur in the world. It doesn’t just see the road, it sees in infrared and sonar, like that. It has real-time satellite information. And it makes decisions so fast you miss them. The law says I have to sit here, but honestly, if you see me reach for the wheel the odds are you should punch me in the face. The car is much better at this than I am. If there’s an accident, it’ll have saved us—or not—before I even know what’s going on. I’m just here in case it suddenly decides to take over the world." He grins. "Skynet, right? Only that’s not going to happen either. It’s bollocks. Specialised intelligence. It doesn’t think. It drives."