coming to ?” I said it the other afternoon as I defied the lawnmower and sat down the back ( yes , with a pint ) and read the Sunday tabloids . It was a motoring story that hooked my attention . A story about that growing new phase in our transportation lives , electricity . And there ’ s an unnerving ( well to me it is ) little twist to this plug-and-go psyche , it is called “ human back-up driver ” vehicles . Yep , cars where the drivers will be able to take their hands off the steering wheel and let the auto-pilot car do the driving . The new kid on the block is called the Argo AI and Ford is a major investor in it by all accounts . They are currently testing vehicles , with human back-up drivers , in six US cities . Oh , and they will be monitored by in-built cameras to make sure the non-driving driver is actually paying attention . Self-driving software has been around for some time now , as have police callouts to crashes where such vehicles had tripped up . In one recent incident police spotted guy in
a Tesla travelling down the freeway . He had thwarted the monitoring hands-on-the-wheel device because he was sitting in the back seat . Nuts . “ What the hell is the world coming to ?” But they ’ ll happen and like those crazily quick electric scooters , and that vaping lunacy , they will arrive in an unprepared world where regulations are very slow in adapting to them . There are two motorcycles in my shed and they have petrol tanks , and always will have . Their dependence on electricity will remain with their ignition batteries only . On the subject of “ what ’ s going on ?” how has Honda managed to drop the ball so efficiently in MotoGP ? A ball that has been picked up by Ducati in the wake of recent results ... which is great for the whole scene I reckon because it ’ s something that ’ ll never happen in F1 . My only moodiness moments are when I catch sight of Rossi ’ s results . I don ’ t like the letters DNF .
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