Uber have suspended the driverless car which killed a pedestrian in Arizona. Without pay. And pending police action to see whether the modified Volvo C90 will have to appear in court to face charges.

That’s what I saw in the distorting image of my warped mind. The headline actually read that Uber have suspended the driverless trials. For a while. Though there are no details of what happened yet, which is odd because with all that techno-shit, don’t they have a simple dashboard camera onboard? You’d’a thunk.

The car was in ‘fully autonomous’ mode but had a driver behind the wheel anyway. Just in case. In case of what, when he missed the pedestrian, I don’t know. In case it ran out of gas, maybe. So maybe the pedestrian just kind’a jumped out from behind a parked car or something. I don’t know, but we must presume the Volvo to be innocent until proven otherwise.

Ironically, the first words out of everyone’s mouths relating to this terrible tragedy were about how much safer autonomous vehicles will be than cars with drunk, tired, telephone-obsessed humans at the wheel. Which is probably true. And I didn’t mention ‘speeding’ on the grounds that it might incriminate me.

But wouldn’t a driverless car be the perfect weapon for the perfect murder? You could eliminate an enemy with just a tiny little tweak to a computer program. And then have that computer do the digital equivalent of ‘eat the paper’ upon which it was written. We could send hit-cars round to those who need murdering. Not just Jeremy Corbyn, but perhaps other worthies too. You’re on holiday in the Czech Republic at the time and the car won’t break under torture.

Top Gear is now a raging success, again. Apparently. They’re praising Matt Le Blanc, quite rightly, but really it was getting rid of toxic boy-man Chris Evans that really saved the show. The first series, in which they both starred, was simply nauseating. I watched 10 minutes of one show and actually vomited. Mainly because the old (real?) Top Gear, was ‘laddism’ in the most British, reserved, non-contact way. In which true bromance and love is demonstrated by insulting each other really nastily and pretty much constantly. Its subtle. Its wicked. Its funny.

Whereas by getting in Matt Le Blanc, Chris Evans chose to do ‘laddism’ the American way. Which is all high fives and man-hugs with a lot of screaming and whooping. Which is bad enough when perpetrated by real Americans but when wannabe ginger-haired northerners get involved its time to get programming the driverless hit-car.

They’ve toned it right down, made Matt the Englishman’s Yank, and all is well in Top Gear Land once more. What a relief.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx