Driverless Cars

Bernie174 said:
For this to work, it will have to be all on automatic, or none. Having a mix is a recipe for a disaster.
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Yes. Or segregated. Only auto drive cars will be allowed in the city that was once gridlocked.
During the transition period there will be fast lanes for the auto drive cars. Tempting many sceptics to upgrade.

Isn't it amazing that when you offer someone fewer deaths, less pollution, less road rage, fewer traffic queues, fewer parking problems and charges, less fuel and insurance costs, and more time to spend doing other, useful things, they still can't see it.
 
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ST4 said:
I cannot imagine people embracing something they have NO control or overiding ability to stop/control whilst travelling with their nearest and dearest on board with at 60mph plus in close proximity to other boxes doing the same
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You do understand that we have driverless trains, right?
 
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nilagin said:
I'm sure I read somewhere the car occupant will still have to sit in the driving seat and will still be in charge of the vehicle.
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Yep. Until the technology "matures". Just like cars used to have to have somebody with a red flag walk in front of them until that technology matured.

You can come with loads of "what if"s about driverless cars, but the simple fact is that they won't be introduced into the same world we have right now. Once we have them, the world will be a very different place. And to get there we'll need to make some changes such as figuring out some of the legal details. But these are details. The rest is a computer problem and it looks like we are on the way to cracking that.
 
And they'll end up all being electric. With no manual gearboxes. No clutch pedal. No pedals at all! Hooray for nerd free driving.
 
I love how non facts are presented as facts "of the future" :lol:
 
viv1969 said:
I love how non facts are presented as facts "of the future" :LOL:
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But look what happened when "war of the world" was first broadcast on the radio :D
 
Cobra said:
But look what happened when "war of the world" was first broadcast on the radio :D
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Bit overblown that one as I understand it.

But I suppose gullible is gullible no matter the date :-)
 
"The chances of anything like driverless cars, is a million to one." he said.
 
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I read all the driverless car thing with great joy, much as the died in the wool car junkies will weep and complain the possibilities are fantastic.

Car pooling, your car drops you off then returns home, disabled access to easy transport, older people who are less confident driving can retain access to transport.

bring it on :-)
 
I quite like the idea of a system where it would no longer be necessary to actually "own" a car and you could simply "summon" one for your specific journey and have it charged to your account. It would mean also an end to roads being used as free car parks at taxpayers expense as cars would always be either on their way to collect someone or carrying someone and hardly ever just parked. A lot of cars are probably used only 10% of the time so this could mean a lot less cars being required for the same level of service.
 
boliston said:
I quite like the idea of a system where it would no longer be necessary to actually "own" a car and you could simply "summon" one for your specific journey and have it charged to your account. It would mean also an end to roads being used as free car parks at taxpayers expense as cars would always be either on their way to collect someone or carrying someone and hardly ever just parked. A lot of cars are probably used only 10% of the time so this could mean a lot less cars being required for the same level of service.
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And millions of people around the world out of work because not so many cars will be needed. You'd be surprised how many jobs may be remotely linked to the car manufacturing industry as well as ownership.
 
They'd still need to design and make cars. If they make fewer cars, then factory shifts would be shortened. And the robots would have longer tea breaks.

If we wanted to reduce unemployment, then there are much more efficient ways, than buying things we don't need.

We could use all the money we've saved on fuel, insurance, parking fees and ownership of something expensive that we don't use for most hours of the day, to buy something we really want. Thus increasing employment again.
 
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Isn't it amazing that when you offer someone fewer deaths, less pollution, less road rage, fewer traffic queues, fewer parking problems and charges, less fuel and insurance costs, and more time to spend doing other, useful things, they still can't see it.
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Isn't that just a Utopian view?

A few years ago, it was being predicted that my fridge would know I was running out of milk and order more. It hasn't happened and in any case, do people really want that? Do people really want a car that drives it's self? Certainly not all the time. Personally, I don't see the widespread introduction for a very long time.
 
I won't guess 'when' it will happen. Clearly it will take longer for some people to understand the huge benefits. But when those people get the choice of, get to work in 15 minutes, compared to 1 hour for double the cost, they'll wonder why they didn't "get it" before.

It makes any benefit of your Internet connected fridge look trivial. And they never even predicted your fridge would be cheaper!

Predicting something will improve is not actually utopian. There will still be costs and problems. Just fewer than today. The aim is to solve bigger problems that we have in cities already today. Utopia comes later.
The only thing stopping us from achieving utopia now, is people's brains.
 
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You'll have to forgive me for being cynical, but I doubt the time savings you predict are achievable. Driver or diverless, you can only get x number in y space, and while it may bring slight savings in time the simple fact is the glass is mostly full. So is there really an advantage?
In any case, driving for many is a pleasure and I can't see people wanting to loose that. Which leads us back to the issue of mixing the driverless and driver, segregation isn't an option, there's not the room to do that in the UK, so that mix is likely to nullify the advantages you suggest.
 
Well, as long as we are still allowed to have fun enjoying our driving high performance (speed, braking, handling, etc) petrol cars, I really don't give a damn!

Perhaps such driverless cars should be programmed to leave enough space between them so that there are gaps with enough space to overtake them into and also to slow down automatically when being overtaken :D

Imagine how lethal these devices would be in the control of terrorists etc. Remote controlled and anonymous mobile bomb!!
 
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nilagin said:
And millions of people around the world out of work because not so many cars will be needed. You'd be surprised how many jobs may be remotely linked to the car manufacturing industry as well as ownership.
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Yes. I was listening to a pod cast the other day about all the piano makers who lost their jobs when middle class homes suddenly stopped having pianos. Strangely the unemployment rate remained around the same. Lots of jobs lost / lots of jobs created.

You could say the same about desktop computing, automated car manufacture and the Spinning Jenny. The argument "we will massively reduce labour costs" has never really stopped anything happening.
 
Bernie174 said:
In any case, driving for many is a pleasure and I can't see people wanting to lose that.
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....Too right!! I love every mile and always have done, irrespective of the purpose of the journey. If I don't drive for a week I feel withdrawal symptoms and have to go out for a blast.
 
Which is why I mentioned the Go-Kart tracks for those that want that sort of thing.
Bernie174 said:
You'll have to forgive me for being cynical, but I doubt the time savings you predict are achievable. Driver or diverless, you can only get x number in y space, and while it may bring slight savings in time the simple fact is the glass is mostly full. So is there really an advantage?
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That and more. Many cities have severe traffic problems, where crossing them in a car can easily take 1 hour. The bigger ones 2 hours. The pressure to reduce this problem is clear. If they put some streets aside for driver less cars only, those cars would travel in synchronised convoys, with just a small gap between them, at high speeds across the city. Never needing to slow down, or stop at junctions. Cars will leave and join the convoys, peeling off to join other routes as their journey requires. The glass is nowhere near full.
 
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ianp5a said:
Which is why I mentioned the Go-Kart tracks for those that want that sort of thing.
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....Have you ever driven Go-Karts? - Fun, yes but they don't get you from A to B. Besides, I don't even like most flat and featureless airfield circuits in a car - Spa Francorchamps is my favourite.
 
A few times. Not much. Maybe they will become better if it becomes a more popular recreation. But if you want to get from A to B in a big city, going by car is often a bad option.
RedRobin said:
I love every mile and always have done,
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Many people don't enjoy sitting in long traffic jams, unsure of how long it will take them to get to work.
 
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That and more. Many cities have severe traffic problems, where crossing them in a car can easily take 1 hour. The bigger ones 2 hours. The pressure to reduce this problem is clear. If they put some streets aside for driver less cars only, those cars would travel in synchronised convoys, with just a small gap between them, at high speeds across the city. Never needing to slow down, or stop at junctions. Cars will leave and join the convoys, peeling off to join other routes as their journey requires. The glass is nowhere near full.
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Except where there's a cross junction. Thats just one issue, the other being funneling 3 lanes of traffic to 2 or 1. Sorry, but putting a computer in charge isn't going to resolve that, there's still
too much traffic for the roads as they stand. These are already bumper to bumper. Yes, increasing the space between cars would resolve the cross roads, but not funneling, it'll just make that worse. To do that you have to reduce the flow, that means getting people out of cars and onto public transport. But thats not what people want, well, they do, but its like traffic laws, they want them provided it applies to everyone else not them!

Putting streets aside wont work either, not without major re working of the roads system. The roads system, at least in London and Southampton is pretty much full, there's not the room to do as you suggest without making matters far worse and negating any real use for driverless cars.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I'm still baffled why the bad guys aren't using more drones.
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The payload that a drone can carry is basically proportional to its size and there is a legal limit on the size of drone you can fly before you need a license. I know bad guys aren't worried about licenses but they would probably be spotted testing their monster drone before they ever got to deploy it.
 
ianp5a said:
A few times. Not much. Maybe they will become better if it becomes a more popular recreation. But if you want to get from A to B in a big city, going by car is often a bad option.
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....Agreed and that is why I never owned a car when I lived in Chelsea (and worked from home). Taxi if going to see clients.

ianp5a said:
Many people don't enjoy sitting in long traffic jams, unsure of how long it will take them to get to work.
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....True, but I have never experienced that on a daily basis and now I don't have time to work anyway :D
 
sirch said:
The payload that a drone can carry is basically proportional to its size and there is a legal limit on the size of drone you can fly before you need a license. I know bad guys aren't worried about licenses but they would probably be spotted testing their monster drone before they ever got to deploy it.
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....Images come to mind of Mr Hitler's V-2 rocket bombs :D

I hear that folks who want to fly drones of any size are sooner or later going to need a CAA license.
 
Bernie174 said:
Except where there's a cross junction. Thats just one issue, the other being funneling 3 lanes of traffic to 2 or 1. Sorry, but putting a computer in charge isn't going to resolve that, there's still
too much traffic for the roads as they stand. These are already bumper to bumper. Yes, increasing the space between cars would resolve the cross roads, but not funneling, it'll just make that worse. To do that you have to reduce the flow, that means getting people out of cars and onto public transport. But thats not what people want, well, they do, but its like traffic laws, they want them provided it applies to everyone else not them!

Putting streets aside wont work either, not without major re working of the roads system. The roads system, at least in London and Southampton is pretty much full, there's not the room to do as you suggest without making matters far worse and negating any real use for driverless cars.
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Cities spend a lot on congestion management already. They dont have a choice but to adapt the infrastructure to new solutions. Including junctions for driver less vehicles only. No one needs to stop. Funnelling will not be a issue as cars will only be on those lanes for a much shorter period. Think of cars, all travelling at the precisely same speed, say 80 kph, will only take up 25% of the space of cars travelling at 20kph in heavy traffic. And even less due to not stopping at junctions. And even less as they don't need big gaps between cars. And even less due to reduction of accidents. Those cars will be exiting the traffic system 4 to 10 times faster.

Junctions and funnelling are just problems of old world, manually driven cars. Which is going to drive people to want change. In the mean time, they'll get to see cars whizzing past them, the other side of the barriers.
 
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ianp5a said:
Cities spend a lot on congestion management already. They dont have a choice but to adapt the infrastructure to new solutions. Including junctions for driver less vehicles only. No one needs to stop. Funnelling will not be a issue as cars will only be on those lanes for a much shorter period. Think of cars, all travelling at the precisely same speed, say 80 kph, will only take up 25% of the space of cars travelling at 20kph in heavy traffic. And even less due to not stopping at junctions. And even less as they don't need big gaps between cars. And even less due to reduction of accidents. Those cars will be exiting the traffic system 4 to 10 times faster.
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....All together and all at the same speed? How about a train on the road? Oh, hang on, it's already been tried - It's called a tram. That worked out so well too.

And dedicated cycle lanes have worked so well in English cities haven't they... Not!
 
Unlike underground trains, trams are mainly mixed in with manually driven cars and traffic lights. Yet with clever timing they are not so badly off as cars. But like busses, each one will replace 20 or 30 cars on that road.

Did you know that railway operators have been increasing the capacity of the railways, just by optimising their software that determines the rail traffic flow and the spacing between trains?

I don't see how poor cycle lanes is relevant here. But the UK government sees the benefits to the UK from driverless cars, and is prepared to spend big bucks on making it happen.
 
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Give it 20 years and we will have some areas that are covered and cars that are semi autonomous I want this technology to succeed for me when I am 70 so I can be driven about
 
Cities spend a lot on congestion management already. They dont have a choice but to adapt the infrastructure to new solutions. Including junctions for driver less vehicles only. No one needs to stop. Funnelling will not be a issue as cars will only be on those lanes for a much shorter period. Think of cars, all travelling at the precisely same speed, say 80 kph, will only take up 25% of the space of cars travelling at 20kph in heavy traffic. And even less due to not stopping at junctions. And even less as they don't need big gaps between cars. And even less due to reduction of accidents. Those cars will be exiting the traffic system 4 to 10 times faster.

Junctions and funnelling are just problems of old world, manually driven cars. Which is going to drive people to want change. In the mean time, they'll get to see cars whizzing past them, the other side of the barriers.
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London is already very near to capacity. The infrastructure doesn't lend itself to not having cross over points, and all of the feeder roads, eg the M3,M4,M1,M11,M2 M23 all have to come down from 2/3/4 lanes to one at some point, then meet a crossroads where another feeder road has reduced in width as well. Thats what stops things, and no automation is going to prevent that happening. Traffic is already bumper to bumper. a given number of cars may take up less space at 80 than 20, but if that given number is pretty much endless, it really makes no difference, in any case, they are not going to be doing 80kmp, the roadside hazards are still going to be there, kids running in roads, pedestrian crossings, the speed limits aren't going to change. You can't have endless streaming either, different cars accelerate at different rates, and slow to stop differently too.

I grant you it could improve but Cities like London cannot change to adapt the road layouts needed. It might work in somewhere like Milton Keynes, but not in London, Winchester or Salisbury.

It matters not at the moment anyway, there's still a great deal of work to be done, technically and legally. The cost is likely to be huge to a car owner to start with, and not everyone will want to convert. The chances of this being the norm in the next 50 years is slim, and the chances of it really changing things much in terms of traffic are even slimmer.
 
sirch said:
The payload that a drone can carry is basically proportional to its size and there is a legal limit on the size of drone you can fly before you need a license. I know bad guys aren't worried about licenses but they would probably be spotted testing their monster drone before they ever got to deploy it.
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Google says a Phantom + will lift 2 kilos. That's a lot of semtex or whatever the cool kids use now. Or roughly 4 hand grenades.
 
So how far will it carry that with a 20mph head wind? You may need to trade some capacity for batteries.
 
sirch said:
So how far will it carry that with a 20mph head wind? You may need to trade some capacity for batteries.
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I have literally no idea. But (1) I'd wait for a tail wind. (2) If I were an evil terrorist mastermind I really would be experimenting with these. They would of course be swiftly spotted near an airport but not really fast enough to do anything. Get one close to a plane that's landing and you could get quite a "spectacular" as they call it on Spooks.
 
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