The self-driving cars here absolutely have their creators punished if someone gets hurt or killed. It’s why they’re oh so careful when putting them into trials. When the local self-driving taxis were phased in, in the first phase they had a safety driver ready to override the car on screw-ups. Later they were restricted in where they could go and, quite by coincidence I’m sure, there was always a cop car near them while they drove in those restricted areas. Now they go in these limited areas unsupervised. They’re still not allowed to roam freely.

It’s been at least three years since I first noticed them on the road, meaning they’ve likely been doing trials for four years.

The same thing is true for the delivery cubes being used to move packages from the massive logistics centres that surround the city to the local distribution centres. They’re everywhere now (because they have predictable courses so could be tested faster) but the testing process was equally stringent and careful … because they knew that if anybody got hurt or killed the cops would be at the doors of the company’s executives.