When was the last time you had a truly classic racist cab driver? Mine was a few years ago, coming out of Victoria Station. On the drive to my home in Camden, Classic Racist Cab Driver had a go at all the normal targets. I sat in the back, wearily trying to screen it out, as you do. The trouble kicked in when he ran out of obvious people to be bigoted about. In desperation, he moved on to Belgians, and then on to scorning ‘anyone who takes trains’ (forgetting, or perhaps recalling, that he’d picked me up at Victoria Station).

Sometimes I wonder if he is still out there, cruising down Park Lane frothing about Kazakhs or people who eat biscuits, but if he is I have bad news for him. His days are numbered. Because some startling data has emerged from an analysis of San Francisco transport services. It shows that people are not just happy to take driverless cabs (which are run by Waymo in San Fran) – they will actually pay 50 per cent more and wait considerably longer for a driverless cab, in preference to a cab with a human at the wheel. Far from being petrified of it ploughing into the Pacific, people will wait for the weird and expensive droid-car.

Several explanations have been advanced for this.........

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