During the week after Xmas I was driving up to my near big intersection to make a right turn and awaited three either-side-of-twenty gents to cross. One not only had his little remote control model car along for the walk, he was running it. Though the intersection had the handicapped-compatible "scallops" in the curb he did assist it in getting off the sidewalk.

While these electric playthings have been around for decades, all the "drones", military and otherwise, in the news, along with the equally robotic (steady, Dan) musings about the new year, lent this scene a bit more topicality.

We have had, in a development which came around at the onset of a past new year, a "spit on the sidewalk" regulation that pedestrians will attain the other side before a driver can proceed but I didn't wait to see if the car could make it to the other sidewalk unassisted.

But I know the trend.