The continuing menace of driverless vehicles
All over the country, every day driverless vehicles are colliding with other vehicles and/or structures according to the local press.
Here’s a typical example from today’s Bristol Live/Post to accompany the screenshot below.
Nowhere in the entire report is there any mention of a driver, i.e. someone who might have been able to avoid the vehicle in question deciding to crash into the railway bridge of its own volition.
Furthermore, the byline shows that someone is unfamiliar with basic English language. It reads:
Services are at a stand.
The byline is in fact quoted from Inrix, a US-based traffic data company which now operates in the Untied Kingdom, but seems to be unfamiliar with the word standstill. If any illiterate Inrix employees happen to be passing, it is defined as a condition in which all movement or activity has stopped.
The phrase at a stand does exist, but its meaning – in a state of confusion or uncertainty; undecided what to do next – is subtly different from standstill.