Jeremy Clarkson Nearly Killed By Driverless Car Mistakes

Former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has claimed that he was nearly killed by a driverless car when it made two ‘huge mistakes’.

Clarkson issued a warning to Chancellor Philip Hammond today in The Sunday Times as the government prepares to give the green light on testing driverless cars on British roads.

The Chancellor is expected to make the announcement in his next Budget.

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Clarkson wrote:

I drove a car the other day which has a claim of autonomous capability and twice in the space of 50 miles on the M4 it made a mistake, a huge mistake, which could have resulted in death.

We have to be very careful legally, so I’m not going to say which one.

However, Clarkson also directly addressed Audi which has announced that next year it will put on sale the most advanced driverless car of its kind.

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Clarkson challenged Audi saying:

You drive one of your driverless cars over the Death Road in Bolivia and I’ll buy one.

Sit there with your hands folded and let it drive you up there, then squeeze past a lorry with half the tyre hanging over a 1,000 ft drop while the car drives itself. Fine, I’ll buy into it.

We will have to wait a while until we see Clarkson buy an autonomous vehicle as he says the incidents have persuaded him that that technology is ‘a very long way off’.

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Meanwhile the government are pushing for changes with Chancellor Hammond wanting to see driverless vehicles on UK roads by 2021.

He believes that this will give the industry a £28 billion boost and create an amazing 28,000 jobs.

With his Budget due on Wednesday, this announcement is sure to be made soon.

Rockstar Games

Developing driverless cars is sure to be no easy task and some of the methods used do seem rather unusual.

For example, Grand Theft Auto 5, a game which actively encourages you to throw aside the rules of the road, is being used to test the autonomous vehicles.

The popular game has in fact one of the best driving simulators around with 14 unique weather conditions, 262 different vehicles and thousands of characters who all act unpredictably.