I would LOVE to watch the self-driving Indy 500.

That aside, his argument is pure speculation. He's afraid of something that might happen in 30 years[1], but probably won't.

[1]I figure even if self-driving cars were released tomorrow, it would still take decades to become popular enough for such a mandate.

You're probably right.

But I still hate them!

Anyone else find it weird that we've not got self-driving trains yet? I mean, they're on rails, that seems to radically reduce the problem space. Yet we're starting with cars? Not even buses that take the same route every day?

I'll note that I do hear about robot driven trains in Japan, but usually as "what are those crazy Japanese up to" type stories, rather than "Why don't we have this obvious tech".

The Seattle (or Portland? can't remember which) airport has a self-driving train that shuttles people between terminals. Of course, there's no competing "traffic" to deal with in those cases, just a handful of trains all heading around a closed loop in the same direction, moving people from place to place.

London's had driverless train since the 1980s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway

I think this is a lame minority view. I don't know anyone who actually loves driving in traffic, for example, even if it is to take their kids to school or to go to the gas station. WTF?

Yeah, traffic sucks. But there's no traffic where I live.

Some people LOVE riding horses, but you don't see them riding horses to the movies do you?

I hate horses! I don't ride them.