I believe self-driving cars will eventually take over. However, this accident does highlight one fallacy, namely the idea that a human driver can be expected to supervise a near-perfect self-driving car.

Just think about it: If your car has been driving perfectly for a whole year, would you find it easy to keep your eyes glued to road and your hands to the steering wheel, just in case the car’s computer has a nervous breakdown? Wouldn’t you start playing with your smartphone, eat a sandwich or even doze off for ten minutes?

What this accident shows is that Google’s model (where the car is fully autonomous and the passengers don’t even have access to a steering wheel) is correct, and Tesla’s is doomed. If a car is driving on its own, nobody should pretend that a human is ultimately in charge.

Am I the only person who upon reading the title had the sudden mental image of flora with glowing plasma leaves that devour trash like venus fly-traps devour flies?

You were not alone... ;)

I can insert comments into a mail address????? How nice! How do I do that?

I guess it's the parantheses they're talking about. In an email address like

john.doe@example.com (John Doe)

the name John Doe is a comment.

Beautiful? That thing is hideous.

It seems most people in this thread forgot to turn on their humor meter...

But that doesn't deal with getting you up earlier during summer than during winter.
I suggest defining 6am to be the time when the Sun rises. Yes, that means the day length wouldn't be constant, but I'm sure that wouldn't be a real issue these days.