Being a cyclist in Amsterdam, the lack of driver eye contact and understanding of body language is what worries me about the application of self driving cars.

Amsterdam traffic is a chaos in which pedestrians and cyclists mix with cars, and the former two frequently (some would say always) ignore the rules. Not out of some anarchistic impulse, but for mutual convenience. Especially with cyclists, for whom coming to a full stop and accelerating again is both "expensive" and risky (accelerating cyclists tend to swerve), relying on eye contact and mutual understanding of intent rather than following the rules of the road by the book results in safer and more fluent traffic.

I imagine a current generation Google self-driving car in Amsterdam coming to a grinding halt and not being able to move backwards or forwards.

But most of all, as a cyclist I wouldn't feel safe sharing the road with "drivers" with whom communicating via eye contact and body language are impossible.

To me, self-driving cars and liveable, human-scale cities are mutually exclusive, and I very much prefer the latter.