Amanda Stretton said the idea of driverless cars in rural areas was "nonsense" [Getty Images]The Shadow Chancellor's suggestion to introduce driverless cars into rural communities "shows a complete lack of understanding" of how the technology works, a motoring journalist has said.Andrew Griffith told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference on Monday that self-driving cars represented a "huge" opportunity to help elderly and disabled people living in the countryside.But Oxfordshire-based motoring journalist Amanda Stretton disagreed, telling the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 that the idea was "just nonsense".Autonomous vehicles have become commonplace in some US cities, with Uber becoming the first company to launch self-driving minicabs in London last month.Stretton, who has fronted a number of high-profile shows for broadcasters including ITV and Channel 4, was formerly a racing driver. During her career behind the wheel she competed in the Le Mans 24 hour race and the FIA GT Championship.She said that driverless cars "need a certain level of uniform road structure so they need painted lines, they need to have clearly marked areas, they need to have clear road signs"."I live in Oxfordshire and just looking at the roads around me... the actual infrastructure of our roads is not up to it," she said.Andrew Griffith made the comments at the Conservative Party conference on Monday [PA Media]Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Griffith told delegates: "A huge use case of autonomy in driving and transport is the sort of area that I represent today, very rural areas where bus services are something that you read about in the old newspapers.""But people - because we are a wonderfully ageing society, we're living longer - might have lost use of their driving licence.""That would be a perfect a place to park an autonomous vehicle and they can shuttle people around."The comments come after Uber launched its small fleet of robo-taxis in London at the start of September. The vehicles are fitted with the UK tech firm Wayve's driverless car technology.They are not pre-programmed, and use AI to analyse data gathered by sensors around the cars about what is going on around it in real time.Google's autonomous car company Waymo and the Chinese tech giant Baidu are also vying to launch similar services in the UK.But all of the schemes are currently designed to operate in cities, where roads tend to be wider with clear markings - unlike many routes in the countryside.Zoe Kleinman, the BBC's technology & AI editor, was one of the first people to travel in a self-driving Uber around London last month"Really stripping it back to the technology that self-driving cars use, they use radar and lidar cameras," Stretton said."All of that information is then taken into the control system and that is what's used for the car to make its decisions.""But for that it needs to have clear visibility, it needs to have no potholes, it needs to have clear lines on the road and it needs to have very clear road signs as well.""We are just so far away from that - the amount of money that needs to be spent on our road infrastructure simply to get it fit for purpose, let alone fit for the next phase of mobility.""I think we're quite a long way off."More on this storyUber launches UK's first robotaxis with a driver - here's what it's like to ride in oneRobotaxis granted licence to operate in LondonCan China repeat its EV success with robotaxis?Related internet linksConservative Party ConferenceUberAmanda Stretton