The robotaxis are coming! The robotaxis are coming! Well, actually, they’re already here. Until now they’ve been the stuff of science fiction, but this summer London’s streets have seen Silicon Valley-based company Waymo testing out self-driving cars. It hasn’t been the smoothest of introductions – from cars getting stuck in a cul-de-sac and repeatedly waking up the residents of Shoreditch to one driving into a crime scene, after a double stabbing in Harlesden.

The automated vehicles (AVs) have so far had trained drivers waiting behind the wheel to take control if needed, but will soon be shedding their human minders. Waymo and British rival Wayve are hoping to launch driverless minicabs in the capital this year, subject to approval from the British government and Transport for London, among others. A subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, Waymo currently operates ride-hailing services in 10 US cities, but London, with its narrow streets and densely populated centre, will serve as one of its biggest challenges yet.

Is this a good thing? I have to admit I was initially suspicious, being naturally resistant to all forms of modernity and any “solution” proposed by the tech industry. Plus, the clunky camera-laden Jaguar SUVs hardly scream sex appeal.

But there is an aspect to this too little considered: for me, and others with accessibility needs, AVs offer a different future, a possibility of independence that feels otherwise unattainable. I will never be able to drive due to my poor vision, a reality that has left me unable to apply for many jobs and made me reliant on others to get around – especially when outside of cities. Many rural areas simply don’t have trains or taxis, causing an accessibility minefield for anyone living there or visiting. Driverless taxis may not solve that but they offer a roadmap towards the wider rollout of self-driving cars that could.

It’s no small matter. Transportation barriers limit the ability of disabled people to get jobs, access health care and socialise, with only 42% of those with difficulty seeing, and 54% of those with other disabilities, being in employment in the UK, according to 2022 analysis by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). With about one in four people in the UK living with a disability, this technology could be an important vehicle for social inclusion and participation.

None of this is to wash away the consequences of inviting the tech lords to dominate our streets, especially by using disabled people as pawns in their arguments to do so. There are questions to be answered around surveillance – sensors within the cars will record information about our journeys and interactions with other vehicles or humans en route. It is possible the tech firms involved could use this to sell products and services to users. Proper regulation, rather than an aversion to the life-changing technology, is needed.

The cost of job losses for taxi and delivery drivers as the technology advances must also be taken into account. A 2025 report from rideshare data collection company Gridwise found that hourly pay fell for taxi drivers in all cities with AVs from July 2024 to July 2025, with the sharpest drops observed in Austin (-5.3%) and San Francisco (-6.9%). This contrasted with a 1% increase in hourly pay for rideshare drivers nationally. The government should listen to trade unions seeking assurances that any transition towards autonomous passenger services includes protections for affected workers.

And then there is safety: naturally the main port of call for critics. Individual examples of vehicle mishaps are often highlighted when raising concerns. But, the reality is self-driving cars have so far been less likely to get into crashes than their human-driven counterparts. Recent analysis analysis by the nonprofit news site LA Reported found that over almost 38m driverless miles in Los Angeles between March 2024 and December 2025, there were only 28 Waymo crashes reporting injuries and only one in which the robotaxis were at fault. Humans driving the same distance would have had about 60 such crashes, so Waymos ended up in 64% fewer crashes with injuries.

When it goes wrong, we know all about it. In December, a video emerged showing a Waymo robotaxi driving a passenger through the scene of a police standoff in downtown LA. Last month, 3,800 of the robotaxis were recalled after a software issue led to an empty Waymo vehicle entering a flooded road and being swept into a creek in Texas. Driverless cars may never be completely safe but neither are human drivers. If one is said to cause fewer deaths and injuries, it is surely advantageous to adopt it.

There is no denying that self-driving cars are fraught with moral and societal complications and that those will have to be dealt with carefully through greater government regulation and protections. But this is an opportunity for disabled rights that is too great to be missed. As well as revolutionising the lives of those with disabilities, these cars could transform the safety of everyone else – assuming that, as they develop, they continue to be much safer than human-driven cars. There must be a positive conversation and disabled people must be a part of that conversation. The government should set up an accessibility advisory panel with representation from across the disability spectrum.

The robotaxis are coming! Think what that could do for you; think what that could do for me and millions like me.

The train whose driver died in the Bedford rail crash passed a danger signal and was not automatically stopped – while the train it hit had halted on the line because its warning system had wrongly caused it to brake, investigators believe.

An initial report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch into the crash, which killed a train driver and injured more than 100 people, said it was not yet clear whether the train’s automatic warning system alerted the driver of the southbound Luton airport express from Corby that he had passed a red signal.

He braked nine seconds before impact but could not stop colliding at 49mph with a Nottingham-London train, stopped on the same track a couple of miles outside Bedford station at Elstow.

Investigators said the stopped train had halted unexpectedly because a fault had developed with the automatic warning system (AWS) equipment fitted to it, which caused the brakes to apply.

The collision between two East Midlands Railway trains occurred last Friday.

The stopped train from Nottingham was a brand-new Aurora class 810 model built by Hitachi, brought into service within the past six months on EMR.

The driver killed in the Bedford crash was Shaun Burton, 60, described by EMR as a “dedicated railway professional” who had “touched the lives of colleagues and passengers alike”.

Eight of the 100 injured passengers remain in critical condition, and 53 more remain in hospital, the RAIB said.

Disruption on the line is expected to continue through the week while engineers continue work to access the crash site and remove the damaged trains, and complete any necessary repairs to the track.

The managing director of Network Rail’s eastern region, Ellie Burrows, had earlier said that “current indications are that this was a tragic isolated incident”.

The crash was the fourth involving passenger trains on the UK railway since 2020, after more than a decade without any similar serious incident.

More details soon …

Some public health threats make global headlines: Covid-19. Ebola. Famine. When these disasters hit, photographs and videos of people suffering and dying spur countries to respond, international bodies to cooperate and individuals to donate supplies and money. Yet one of the world’s deadliest threats gets almost no attention at all, because it is largely invisible to the public and mostly absent from media coverage: air pollution.

Every day, billions of people are inhaling air that is shortening their lives and making them sicker with every breath. Every year, air pollution kills more than 8 million people worldwide. That’s more deaths than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. It hides in plain sight and strikes without mercy, leading to heart and lung disease, cancers and other deadly conditions.

The heaviest burden falls on low- and middle-income communities and nations, but it is a problem that stretches across all classes and countries.

The good news is this is a fixable problem – and the public doesn’t need to wait for national governments to act. Cities can implement their own solutions – and as the world convenes in London for Climate Action Week, the success that the English capital and New York have had in reducing pollution can help overcome opposition to bold climate action.

Experts at King’s College London predicted that from 2016 it would take almost 200 years for London to meet legal limits for roadside nitrogen dioxide (NO2) without action. But with robust and bold action from City Hall, London did it in nine.

How? By following the data. Alongside an extensive network of automatic and passive monitors, low-cost air quality sensors were installed across the city in areas where people live, play and work – schools, hospitals and cultural centres – through the Breathe London programme. But data alone is not enough. Progress comes down to how it is used and by whom. That’s why the Breathe London network also engaged with community leaders and the general public to increase awareness and install additional sensors in the areas most in need.

The data helped to inform solutions, such as the ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) – the world’s largest clean air zone – and the rollout of zero-emission buses on London’s streets, which have made a real impact and driven air pollution levels down drastically. Taking those steps required facing down political opponents, pressure groups and vested interests but – as the data makes clear – the public has benefited. Only this month, new research published by Imperial College London found that fewer Londoners were admitted to hospital with breathing and heart problems as a direct result of the impact of the Ulez.

London built on the work that was pioneered in New York, where air-quality sensors helped city government target its efforts and drive air pollution down to a 50-year low. Both cities have demonstrated that rapid, measurable progress is achievable. In doing so, both cities have also shown that lower emissions and improved air quality are good for health, the climate and the economy, since improving air quality helps attract private investment. Now our mission is to help other cities do the same.

A new programme called Breathe Cities, launched by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with Clean Air Fund and C40 Cities, was created to take what we’ve learned and spread those best practices around the world. This initiative gives mayors what they need to attack the problem head-on: real-time data on where pollution is worst, technical support to convert that data into policy solutions and a global network of cities to share ideas with. Breathe Cities will ensure that when something is working in one city, other cities will benefit, as those success stories become roadmaps for mayors across the globe to follow.

The early results are promising. We’re already seeing that blueprint work not only in global capitals such as London and New York, but also in cities with widely varying levels of resources and political dynamics.

Nearly 1,200 air sensors have been deployed across 14 participating Breathe Cities, including the first hyper-local networks ever established to detect pollution in Accra and Nairobi. Ten of these cities have committed to clean air zones by 2030, which will collectively cover an area where more than 18 million people live and work.

By using data, cities are attacking the problem of air pollution as a public health challenge and simultaneously making progress in tackling the climate crisis, rather than retreating from environmental protection as some national governments are doing. People rightly expect their local leaders to make it safe to walk outside. That includes protecting them from toxic pollution, as breathing clean air is a fundamental right.

The more cities that uphold that right, the more lives will be saved – and the more progress the world will make in the fight against the climate emergency.