If the age of self-driving cars is upon us, what's keeping them off the roads?

As Google and Uber trial prototypes, the future of fully driverless cars and safer roads should come sooner than anyone thought - but they're in no mood to rush

Sitting in the passenger seat of Google's self driving car is a less bizarre experience than sitting in the driving seat, but it's still unsettling. In the streets of Mountain View, outside the headquarters of X (once Google X, in the post-Alphabet age it's moved out of mum and dad's house and dropped the prefix), I got the chance to do just that.

It's partly unsettling because it's hard not to feel a flicker of anxiety when you look over and notice that the person driving the car hasn't got their hands on the wheel, even as you head towards a red light on a corner with a huge truck bearing down on you.