The big worry with self-driving taxis is that Brits can't be trusted to behave

There is a sketch on the old TV comedy show Trigger Happy TV where a man dressed in a snail costume stands at a London zebra crossing. The traffic stops and our shell-carrying protagonist proceeds to get down on his hands and knees and slither across the road on his belly at what can only be described as a snail’s pace. 

Is it wrong that this image popped into my head on hearing the news that Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, will bring its self-driving taxis to London in 2026? Let me elaborate a little before you deliver your verdict. 

Waymo’s autonomous taxis are in operation now in cities right across the United States, from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Austin and Atlanta. The firm’s white Jaguar I-Paces are bedecked with high-tech sensor arrays on the roof that make them resemble Ecto-1, the Cadillac Ambulance from the film Ghostbusters. It’s perfectly obvious to any bystander that these aren’t your everyday cars but they’re fully licensed to act as private hire vehicles, collecting paying passengers and delivering them to their destination. 

Waymo is to be commended for its achievements so far. Plenty of car manufacturers have dabbled in the quest for fully autonomous vehicles and continue to do so, but actually putting them on the public road and making money from them is a major step and a huge success. It’s a generalisation but in America such triumphs of technology and capitalism, particularly by domestic companies, tend to be praised and respected by the public. 

But the question that occurs to me is, will UK motorists, cyclists and pedestrians feel the same sense of reverence when they see a Waymo Jag tentatively scanning its way up Tottenham Court Road towards them?     

Would the British psyche - with its special sense of humor and passion for knocking the successful ‘down a peg or two’ - mean that people here are more likely to ‘mess about’ with an autonomous car as it tries to go about its business than their American cousins? 

I’m not sure about this – and any level of foolish or potentially dangerous behavior on public roads is obviously to be condemned – but I can imagine certain people taking advantage of the fact that these cars will (hopefully) stop whenever presented with an obstacle.  

Will our great London taxi drivers resist the urge to perform their cheeky U-turns in front of unfortunate Waymos, holding up everyone behind? Will pedestrians be using them as a handy way to stop traffic when they need to cross the street? How will the typical student with ready access to traffic cones interact with these vehicles on a Friday night after the pubs close? And, heaven forbid, will enterprising YouTubers in snail costumes be lurking at the roadside in search of the next viral video clip? 

In less than 12 months time, we’re going to find out.

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