Driverless Cars - the future?

S19 said:

It'll never happen in my lifetime.

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Absolutely right.

However I feel I must commend Zoe for refusing to back down in the face of seemingly unanimous opposition, though not so much to driverless cars as the idea of central pools of driverless cars that can be called upon by anyone at any time.

This has been a most interesting and amusing thread. I take on board the point that some things may come to pass which we cannot imagine today, but I would also like to point out that quite a few predictions have been made that have not come to pass.

In 1982, when leaving school, I remember the visions of the future that were presented as possibilities. The internet, along with the ability to do your shopping without leaving home, has changed lifestyles, and was one of the predictions that turned out to be correct.

Unfortunately, colonies on Mars and the Moon, or hypersonic passenger aircraft seem to be further away than ever. It would be interesting to fast forward to 2042 and have a look at this thread again!

S19 said:

Zoe, you might not actually believe it, but guess what? Computers fail too!

If computers were the be all and end all of everything, eliminating andy safety issues, why does a nuclear power station employ hundreds of highly skilled personnel when they could simply have a computer control everything?

I guess I best start looking for a new job!

Driverless cars can do one. I love going out and being at one with a vehicle, especially a very fast one.

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Airliners are a good example. Most airliners can be flown on autopilot from the moment they leave the ground and at some airports with a CATIII Instrument landing system they can land automatically as well. (However autoland struggles with strong crosswinds as it can't react to more subtle cues as well as the pilots can)

But they still require fully trained pilots to monitor the systems and to intervene quickly if anything unusual happens...

What happens if a sensor fails. With most aircraft if one of the pairs of sensors fails the computers hand control back to the pilot.

starrymarkb said:

Here's an example. About once a year around Halloween we go to Whitby. And we take a lot of stuff. (Goths do not travel light as anyone who has travelled on the Coastliner bus from York at Halloween weekend can testify).

So questions about this journey.

• What sort of cost would I be looking at for a 330 mile journey? Would I be charged per mile or by the hour
• It is about a 7 hour drive, how would comfort stops be accounted for... Would I be charged for the time spent getting food or would I be expected to unload the car and
• Would the vehicle have to be repatriated to its home area or would it be one nationwide pool. How would you deal with honeypot areas without leaving others short. Would vehicles return empty or look for journeys heading back to their home area?
• If Electric cars are used how would you arrange any en-route recharges that might be needed

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Indeed. Neither do Metalheads. As an aside. Did you ever live in Brighton by any chance?

starrymarkb said:

Airliners are a good example. Most airliners can be flown on autopilot from the moment they leave the ground and at some airports with a CATIII Instrument landing system they can land automatically as well. (However autoland struggles with strong crosswinds as it can't react to more subtle cues as well as the pilots can)

But they still require fully trained pilots to monitor the systems and to intervene quickly if anything unusual happens...

What happens if a sensor fails. With most aircraft if one of the pairs of sensors fails the computers hand control back to the pilot.

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Exactly

DJ_K666 said:

Indeed. Neither do Metalheads.

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Since when?! hock: I travel as light as possible, wherever I'm going. Although one of the joys of leather jackets is that they are adorned with a thousand capacious pockets handy for containing useful nik-naks.

Goths not travelling light I can understand: They're far too high maintenance!

So. Having read this with great amusement I am now ready to make my own comment.

I do believe that there are far far too many variables to make driverless cars a widespread reality in the next 10, 20 or even 50 years. People will drive regardless of the price of insurance, hence the number of companies offering uninsured crash cover.
I for one would not scrap my (classic) car, so it would remain hidden in my garage rather than render me guilty of sacrilege.

The infrastructure would be too expensive and would require a business case probably far, far in excess of what is required for a railway. Also if you computerise them I would not go near them anyway.

Look at all the so-called super computers built recently that have not worked or not done what they were designed for, gone way over budget. Also would you trust a computer run with a Microsoft OS to operate such a complicated system?

I have seen new computers which have never been online just suddenly decide not to work properly. I would never trust that.

Driverless buses:

Just look at my signature to see why I'm against that. Could you imagine being on one that has to brake suddenly to avoid some chav on their mobile who has just pushed a pram into the road to stop the traffic? The operating company would be sued until the cows came home in such an event.

Now, I am not saying it is impossible, I am saying that the technology is not quite "there" yet. Computers are only so good, and to research and develop all the technology to allow the car to detect soiling, etc would take decades to perfect. You would also need a conventional hard disc CCTV system (like we use in our buses), so that if someone did puke or wee (or worse) in the car then they would download the footage and see what actually happened (and if it was not what he car says, perhaps bill the operating company?)

And if they did do this, my own job would be at risk so I would feel aggrieved and would go for compensation.

As I have said, perhaps in 100 years when computers get good enough and technology gets reliable enough, electric cars can be charged quickly enough etc, but not in my lifetime.
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sprinterguy said:

Since when?! hock: I travel as light as possible, wherever I'm going. Although one of the joys of leather jackets is that they are adorned with a thousand capacious pockets handy for containing useful nik-naks.

Goths not travelling light I can understand: They're far too high maintenance!

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Ah ok maybe not all then, but leather can be quite heavy, especially if you fell up all the pockets. Or if you're going to Wacken... With Goths it's all that make-up.
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S19 said:

Exactly

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Pilots also have to do a certain number of manual landings a year tp maintain their license to fly.

GB said:

Your failure to understand why people actual have their own cars is the reason so many are asking if you actually drive.

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I understand why people have cars but that doesn't mean that it's the best possible system.
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GB said:

Maybe safety will be improved, but at what cost? Substantial increase in travel times and a much lower speed limit?

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A computer controlled system would allow cars to travel closer together at higher speeds.

Let's say a driverless car or bus was able to assume a chav with a pram might step out. It would probably mean almost stopping and proceeding at a crawl to be able to stop safely. Very soon kids would find it fun to try and mess around with them.

I suppose we could close of all roads, but then you can't have the cars going everywhere. And when roads are closed without notice, like a landslide or fallen tree, I can just picture the vehicles driving around like mice in a maze trying to find a way out.

Maybe Zoe is actually predicting a future without humans, just robots or in the case of Google, Androids! That would solve many other problems too, like over population and war.

jonmorris0844 said:

Let's say a driverless car or bus was able to assume a chav with a pram might step out. It would probably mean almost stopping and proceeding at a crawl to be able to stop safely. Very soon kids would find it fun to try and mess around with them.

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This assumes access to roads will be the same as it is now.

Zoe said:

I understand why people have cars but that doesn't mean that it's the best possible system.
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A computer controlled system would allow cars to travel closer together at higher speeds.

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Until your computers break! Computers arent perfect!

S19 said:

Until your computers break! Computers arent perfect!

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They will likely be even more reliable in the future and you would have several computers so if one makes a mistake then the others can vote it out. The chances of a human driver making a mistake are likely to be higher than of all the computers in the car failing at the same time. There would of course need to be failsafe systems to deal with any failures in the car.

S19 said:

Until your computers break! Computers arent perfect!

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There are lots of things machines do better then men. I don't think driving would be one. Too many variables

DJ_K666 said:

Pilots also have to do a certain number of manual landings a year tp maintain their license to fly.

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Actually it's the other way round. Pilots have do to a certain number of Automatic landings to maintain their competency at the procedures. The ILS beam needs to be protected from blockages during an automatic approach which severely restricts ground movements. Consequentiality the vast majority of approaches are manually flown.. Only when visibility is very low (around 500m or less) are Autoland approaches done. A pilot I know does not like doing them, they are very tense as any warning or blip and they are aborting the approach

Interesting Ryanair have the autoland equipment on their 737s disabled as they are unwilling to pay for the certification required (in their opinion it's cheaper to divert and most of the small airports they serve do not have a high enough grade of ILS to enable an automatic approach)
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DJ_K666 said:

Indeed. Neither do Metalheads. As an aside. Did you ever live in Brighton by any chance?

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I've never been

Machines, computers or otherwise don't take human nature into account. That's why you can't trust a machine to do a man's job. Sorry Zoe it's still too far off for any of our lifetimes to get a computer reliable enough to do what would be required. Not to say they won't be more reliable in the future but no-one can say when that will be.

DJ_K666 said:

Machines, computers or otherwise don't take human nature into account. That's why you can't trust a machine to do a man's job. Sorry Zoe it's still too far off for any of our lifetimes to get a computer reliable enough to do what would be required. Not to say they won't be more reliable in the future but no-one can say when that will be.

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I can think of one that women say does the job much better !!!

XCDriver said:

I can think of one that women say does the job much better !!!

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Dirty sod...

DJ_K666 said:

Dirty sod...

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I meant a washing machine. Now who's the one with the dirty mind

XCDriver said:

I meant a washing machine. Now who's the one with the dirty mind

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A dirty mind is something to be cherished lol.

DJ_K666 said:

Sorry Zoe it's still too far off for any of our lifetimes to get a computer reliable enough to do what would be required. Not to say they won't be more reliable in the future but no-one can say when that will be.

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A lot can change in 25 years.

Yes, a lot CAN change. doesn't mean that it will though. I'd still say 100 years is more accurate.

Zoe said:

This assumes access to roads will be the same as it is now.

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Are you proposing fencing all roads?

That would be an interesting project. Plus what about pedestrians, I presently walk to work which takes about 10 mins and involves crossing 6 roads. Would I have to walk via designated crossing points, bridges etc. How many bridges would you need to protect the road network?

starrymarkb said:

That would be an interesting project. Plus what about pedestrians, I presently walk to work which takes about 10 mins and involves crossing 6 roads. Would I have to walk via designated crossing points, bridges etc. How many bridges would you need to protect the road network?

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Jaywalking is illegal in some countries, there could still be at grade crossings though. In some cases even now bridges and underpasses are getting replaced by at grade pedestrian crossings due to safety concerns when using them.

My estate would look rather different if the road was fenced off. And how would I cross to get to my neighbours? Or the postman to deliver mail? Suddenly now these driverless cars can't pick me up at my house either! That suddenly defeats the whole object and means the whole county would need a controlled network like the DLR.

But if you suggest crossings, you've still got a way for kids to play with the traffic.

Finally, if you say there will need to be multiple computers to vote the others out, you've now admitted they can't be 100% safe. And when the wrong decision is made?

Plane crashes are rare. Train crashes are rare. But they happen. How many accidents would you expect with driverless cars? Not compared to now but in their own right.

jonmorris0844 said:

But if you suggest crossings, you've still got a way for kids to play with the traffic.

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Kids can do that now but in general they don't. You could use barriers at the crossings to prevent people from crossing the road when it is not safe to do so but this may not be needed as it would likely be an offence to disrupt the system.

Finally, if you say there will need to be multiple computers to vote the others out, you've now admitted they can't be 100% safe. And when the wrong decision is made?

Plane crashes are rare. Train crashes are rare. But they happen. How many accidents would you expect with driverless cars? Not compared to now but in their own right.

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There's always the possibility of a failure but then there's also the possibility for humans to make mistakes. The computers would be much less likely to make mistakes and by using several computers it would further reduce the possibility of a mistake due to a failure so driverless cars would be much safer.

This is getting silly now.

ralphchadkirk said:

This is getting silly now.

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No it isn't, people may not like the idea that in the future computers will be able to do things better than they can but that isn't going to prevent their introduction.

Zoe said:

A computer controlled system would allow cars to travel closer together at higher speeds.

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Evidence please.

Cost?

How much would it cost to fence the roads in?

The problem asI see it is that it would cost a small fortune to change the road network. Then, do you make the infrastructure changes now in preparation or do you wait until we're there with driverless cars?

Either way, the logistics of changing things are pretty huge.

How would a driverless car cope with proper cars doing silly things (stalling @ 30mph off a roundabout for example?)

GB said:

Evidence please.

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It's quite simple, a computer would be able to react to the situation faster than a human can and so the vehicles could travel closer together at higher speeds without it affecting safety.

Evidence please.