Our European correspondent Jacques-Álvaro von Müller-Dubois visited Copenhagen for a response to a British magazine’s thesis that Europe is sliding into irrelevance because our taxis still contain… people.
Kasper-Henning Jørgensen-Mørch, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry for Human-Scale Mobility, obliged between green lights.
“Overall, yes—but apart from universal healthcare, driverless metros that have worked for years, streets you can cross without drafting a will, walkable neighbourhoods, access to abortion without a geography exam, and the notable absence of soldiers patrolling the capital—what has Europe ever done for us?
Actually, we prefer the boring solution that works.”
He nods at a protected bike lane like he’s checking the national pulse, then continues.
Driverless, done the grown-up way.
We put automation where it moves the most people with the least drama: underground. Trains arrive every couple of minutes. No keynotes, no fireworks, just mass transit doing its job. Unsexy, which is to say: it works.
Healthcare without the crowdfunding mini-game.
Here, ambulances deliver you to treatment, not to a payment plan. Over there, they’ve got a vaccine-skeptical Health Secretary and the greatest hits of preventable disease warming up for a reunion tour—but please, tell us more about the hatchback that forgot its driver.
Public safety by design, not superstition.
Lower speeds, zebra crossings, bollards, pavements that are for humans. Meanwhile, roads elsewhere double as a seasonal blood sport. Turning that into a victory lap for software is a no-go.
Schools that teach reading, not duck-and-cover Pilates.
Our classrooms practise books and bikeability. Over there, children rehearse for the worst day of their lives and then—if the timetable allows—long division. Rebranding that as “progress” is risky business.
Rights as default, not DLC.
If you need care, you book care. If you need to end a pregnancy, you consult medicine, not a map. No captcha. No sermon. No scavenger hunt through state lines.
The climate, which persists in being outside.
We do trains, trams and bicycles that don’t feel like punishment. The hottest mobility trend elsewhere is trucks that glare at pedestrians like they’ve written a manifesto.
And yes, America has robotaxis: carefully geofenced habitats where a car plays The Floor Is Lava with reality. Impressive engineering. But the premise—that modernity equals being chauffeured by a bereaved fridge—remains deranged. If the future is defined by who sits in the front seat rather than whether the people inside can afford a doctor when they arrive, the marketing team have won and the species have lost.
Jørgensen-Mørch gathers his notes.
“So, apart from the boring miracles—healthcare you can afford, streets you can survive, trains that turn up, rights you can actually use, cities you can breathe in—what has Europe ever done for us except embarrass a narrative that confuses ‘progress’ with a car that forgot its driver?
We can take a coffee in the weekend and align more, if you like.”
A metro hums in: on time, driverless, and far too competent to trend. Nearby, a taxi—piloted by a human—pulls away. Nobody dies. The future, deprived of a photo op, sulks quietly.
Did You Know?
- Copenhagen has run fully driverless metros since 2002 (M1/M2), later adding M3 Cityringen in 2019 and M4 in 2020, with the Sydhavn/Valby M4 extension opening in June 2024. Peak headways reach 1½ minutes, and punctuality sits around 99%.
- Vaccine-preventable diseases resurged in the U.S. in 2025. Measles topped recent decades (hundreds of cases by spring; highest annual count since the 1990s by mid-summer), with whooping cough also surging—against the backdrop of a vaccine-skeptical Health Secretary and a gutted federal advisory panel.