Driverless cars could be coming to rural Ireland...to get pub-goers home

DRIVERLESS vehicles could one day ferry revellers home in rural Ireland, according to one Irish politician.

Senator Paddy Burke has called on the Minister for Transport Shane Ross to pave the way for autonomous cars to help rural pubs survive.

The Fine Gael politician claims that driverless vehicles could help revitalise rural areas by rendering drink driving on country roads a thing of the past.

Mr Burke believes the Irish Government should begin legislating for the future trend now.

The Seanad was hosting its first assembly since returning from its Christmas recess before Mr Burke made his remarks.

Senators were discussing the Government’s new Action Plan for Rural Development when the politician suggested that robotic cars could help rejuvenate rural areas.

Speaking on road safety, Burke said: “The minister should give some sort of an overview or a view on what the Government and his department is doing in relation to driverless cars, which are not that far away from being introduced into a lot of countries.

“I think that we need to be planning now for the driverless car.

“To be honest I think that it would be a welcome addition to rural areas because it may be one of the only things that might revitalise the rural pubs.

“We’d have the driverless car and allow people to be driven home after having a few jars at night time.”

Burke is not the first Irish politician to ponder the potential of autonomous vehicles.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny revealed in a speech at the opening of a new Google data centre in Dublin last year that he had been behind the wheel in a driverless car himself.

Meanwhile, last summer Elon Musk, CEO of American driverless car automaker Tesla, tweeted his condolences over the “tragic loss” of a test driver who was killed in a driverless car.

"This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles," Tesla wrote in their blog last June.

The incident marked the first incident of a death involving an autonomous vehicle.