Leading article: Train of thought

Will people all over the world one day be joining bumpers to start road trains? That's the dream of the developers of the Safe Road Trains for the Environment (Sartre) project.

They envisage convoys of six to eight cars on our motorways and autoroutes, all connected by radio transmitters, in which everyone except the driver of the lead vehicle can safely put their feet up and relax – at least until their exit comes up.

But we have some questions: what happens if you fall asleep in the middle of the train? Would you wake up at the very end of the motorway? That might be rather inconvenient.

And another thing. Who would want to be at the front doing all the driving? And if they wanted to be at the front, would you necessarily be happy for them to be there? As the original Sartre (Jean-Paul that is) noted: "Hell is other people". And there, surely, speaks a frustrated driver.