Our anonymous blogger asks whether the driverless vehicle will make our roads safer or just make us all lazier
There are times when those of us in the engineering community get to see new developments marching inexorably over the horizon. It starts with odd reports in trade journals about imagined future developments of nascent technology. Such things become talked about and speculation starts. Then ragged prototypes with the air of barely understood wizardry followed by initially disappointing first products and refinements until that first idea is finally – fully – realised.
The example that springs most clearly to mind for me is the whole telecommunications thing. As for the more exciting stuff; flying cars, robotic housemaids (the gender assignment being an indicator of just how long these promises have been around) and so on. Well, these remain hinted at but are still in real terms no closer to reality.
By comparison, the idea of a wrist watch that allows you to talk to someone across the planet is now here, and as a bonus it actually does an awful lot more as well. Something that was common place in the far future set science fiction of the 70’s and 80’s, then hinted at with the start of the electronics boom, is a reality.
We now seem to be on the cusp of the widespread application of yet another long-promised technological leap. After many years of ever more sophisticated (yet still “controlled environment” bound) prototypes, there has been a sudden leap forward with various trials now taking place in the real world. It would appear we are about to enter the age of the autonomous car.
Technology should not seek solutions by merely removing us from the loop – instead it should enhance our experience.
There have been a few articles in the wider media but I wonder how many people outside of our profession realise the great advances that have been recently made? Given that one of the biggest stories to hit the headlines revolved around a Google car crashing into a bus, if anything, they are probably even more convinced that this is just a mad boffin’s rabid fantasy. Make no mistake though, it is fast approaching.
I have to say that this is not a development I relish. I understand the reasoning behind the statements that our roads will become safer, but I cannot get excited. Firstly, I don’t know if I’d trust it. I remember being told, whilst learning to drive, that there are two ways to escape an accident – either slow down or speed up. I wonder if this is even an option with the self driving car? It would certainly make for an interesting law suit should a crash be unavoidable and the car actually sped up just before impact.
For me though, to remove the pleasure of driving, the thrill of control and skill, would be to lose a little of the value in life. Think of it as the automotive equivalent of the slow food movement. Safety can be improved in various ways, this way panders to the lazy. Technology should not seek solutions by merely removing us from the loop – instead it should enhance our experience.
In the event of a fatal accident involving a driverless vehicle who would be deemed liable in law?
Would it be the owner of the vehicle or the manufacturer / supplier of it?
Enough lawsuits could soon kill this idea.
Have a look at a comparable industry for your answer. The rail industry went through the same journey over a hundred years ago. The genie is out of the lamp and there is no getting her back in. Car manufacturers will have to continue to develop the technology and for a while the public will accept that it is the drivers fault. But the perception will shift and the onus of responsibility will shift to the manufacturer. This will mean regulations from government.
Your view is, methinks, seen through healthy, young eyes. Surely a technology that is capable of providing independence, where it does not currently exist is a huge benefit. Think about what this may offer for the partially sighted, disabled, elderly or even very young – I can see doors opening that have been historically locked and sealed. Where will it take us – can’t wait!
CSwallow, when PC got going for real I can remember making that it adoption would mean engineers and designer who we had lost to industry and unable use drawing board or access normal offices of the day, as a result of accidents, could once again be able to use their skills and participate in their future from their perspective. I have watched that happen having been given the opportunity to teach a number of wheelchair bound engineers. Driverless vehicles may provide a similar opportunity but hopefully not at the exclusion of those of us who actually enjoy the act of driving.
That’s what I was thinking about. Unfortunately those people are locked into heir homes and don’t have the money to buy or finance any of these vehicles.
And our bureaucrats will do the rest. Remember the Segway? It’s prohibited to be used in public. Just imagine a Segway-powered wheelchair.
I am a person who rides a bicycle as well as driving a car. While riding, I have been left hooked, tee-boned and squeezed off by vehicles that pull in before they have finished overtaking. Even getting clobbered by a wing mirror of a car that is travelling 20 or 30 mph faster than I am, does a lot of harm.
From my perspective (sprawled out on the tarmac again) driverless cars that can automatically avoid this kind of interaction, have a certain attraction.
I think the whole idea is atrocious. Driverless cars may be OK on the motorway, where life is simple, but on suburban rush-hour routes they will be a nightmare. They will make the use of junctions less efficient as they wait for unusually large gaps in the traffic, they won’t move off sharply as the lights go green, and they’ll miss all sorts of opportunities to maximise the use of the limited road space. I am so much against this, but I might ask to be driven to my funeral in a driverless hearse, then I won’t be able to say “I wouldn’t be seen dead in a driverless car !”.
What is now is a ‘development mode’.
There’s room for development which is exactly opposite to what you say: speed may be up, distances shorter, braking for intersection not necessary.
Human actions are EXTREMELY slow compared to some of technologies already 15 years in high end cars, e.g. automatic brakes reacting in several ms, before you’re able to see the danger, say nothing about moving foot and pressing the pedal, what may be 100 times slower than automation.
You mean they would be safer?
The problem with Driverless Cars is that you have to persuade someone to buy it. Might be OK for a taxi company, but would you buy one if it was your £25K or more? I, like many people, enjoy driving. I don’t want a driverless car. If I did I would take a bus or a train. Having said that, I concede there might be applications when going long distances on highways or motorways when it would be quite nice to take snooze. That’s why it makes a sort of sense in the USA, not so much in Europe.
While on the subject of inventions, the SmartWatch is not such a good idea – just ask Apple. Its one thing to make something, its another to get people to spend their hard earned cash on it. I should know, I have a Smartwatch. It does everything but actually, do I really need to read email on my wrist? I think not. And for a measly £17.50 I can buy a step counter, heart rate monitor and watch in a plastic band all from China. That’s not why people wear watches – they wear them because they look good as well as telling the time. The rest is just frippery in my opinion!
When driving we are surrounded by scofflaws who don’t look, don’t indicate, don’t comply with limits, park inappropriately, hoot and rage. Autonomous vehicles will actually be collaborative vehicles, literally considerate of their surroundings and responsive to regulation – a wonderfully SOCIAL leap forward. Better still, those same vehicles when driven manually, can be pinged (on behalf of the driver) for every infraction, without the need for human supervision.
Won’t it be a pleasure to see your moronic hoon neighbour, monitored without even a single patrol-car required, collect fifty tickets in a day for his continual disregard of society’s regulation? Won’t it be an even greater pleasure to experience smooth, intelligent, responsible road travel, just by accepting the autonomous – and I remind you – collaborative mode? Bring it on!
And you drive 100% within the law at all times Josh?
Not even one moments lapse even through inatention?
Or perhaps a a momentary overspeed to safely pass a slow moving vehicle swiftly & safely?
I personally cannot understand the reasoning for the investment of so many millions into this technology. Safer? Its hugely dependent on high technology, so in the passage of a car’s lifetime time, I suspect the opposite could be true. Lazy option? Most certainly. A dumbing down of personal dexterity skills and awareness of what is going on around oneself is rather scary to an engineer. I may well be biased due to my love of MG classic cars, but I do equally love driving my modern every day car. I say: Use these engineering resources for cleaner internal combustion engine development and range extended electric technology which will surely become the every day car on the road.
All true, but it won’t stop ridiculous organisations such as Innovate UK and Dept of Business pouring yet more millions into this, yet another dead-end ‘innovation’, which like graphene and ‘electric cars’ has near-zero commercial potential. Sales of electric sales are an embarrassment to all involved – yet entirely predictable.
This technology increases the gap between risk and personal responsibility. For me, a lifetime motorcyclist who has never owned a car, the idea that a car might be able to do all the utilitarian jobs like going to Ikea and Tescos, ON ITS OWN, is actually extremely attractive! I needn’t be involved at all, leaving me loads more time to enjoy my Kawasaki. While I still can……
Fairly certain that when there are a good proportion of self driving cars on the road, when an incident occurs that is unforeseen by any or all of the vehicles software, that some machines involved in the incident will be sped up (by their control systems) and some slowed down to avoid collisions and we will all be safer as a result. The issues will tend to be worst when there are some self driving cars on the road whilst the rest are being driven by slow reacting trained monkeys as they are now
It’ll be interesting to see how this concept develops. One major issue will be how the cars can cope with going ‘off-road’ or in remote areas where there is little or no infrastructure. Many roads in rural areas are single track and vehicles have to go onto verges to get past each other. What happens if the vehicle needs to go into a field for something like a gala, country show, etc? Can the vehicle (controlless ones particularly) cope with manouevring a trailer or caravan in a confined space? Much of the driverless concept relies on a known or identifable destination which also has to be accommodated. While it may be seen as a waste of fuel going out for a ‘Sunday drive’ on random route is a good test of flexibility and vehicle adaptability. Has this been included in testing? There is probably a case to answer on whether or not driverless vehicles are being developed because they can in order to expand the boundaries of technology or that there is a real need and justification. It will be a very long time before they are truly able to cope with any and all driving scenarios.
I too enjoy driving but at my age of 80+ I cannot rent a car on holiday and perhaps soon will have to stop because of age related frailties. I don’t want to stop driving or lose my independence so a car that does the driving for me will be very welcome. The sooner the better.
If we look at cars being offered right now for sale: (1) rear-view cameras are here, (2) cars that apply the brakes automatically when there is a proximity hazard, and (3) cars that offer HUD, we see things that were only dreamed of but ten years ago. I for one, enjoy driving the little bit that I do, but if it were a long commute every day, it might be nice to hand over control to an autopilot and do some light reading, etc.
Not sure you will be able to do your light reading, as I see it you will be required to monitor the driverless car in order to intervene if there is a problem, e.g. you find there is an impending collision and the car is not responding, you will need to find the equivalent of Ctrl+Alt+Delete and take over and hope you havn’t run out of space.
Pretty certain that by the time the truly driverless car is allowed on the roads the Partially Trained Monkey will be locked out of the control loop excepting for things like small manoeuvring of vehicles onto inspection ramps and personal garage spaces. In short a driverless car will not want you to press Ctrl Alt Del because you will undoubtedly cause the oncoming collision to be faster, more head on and more dangerous to people around you.
Delighted to be called a partially trained monkey,many thanks.
Personally, my experience (of travelling by car) would be greatly enhanced by technology removing me from the loop. I have no interest in guiding a tonne of metal accurately down the motorway when I could be doing something more interesting with my time instead…
Absolutely – I for one look forwards to the day when I have the option to let a car take the responsibility for driving while I can relax or even snooze – fantastic!
So that is my future. A car driven by software.
A constant round of updates and ‘improvements’, technologically locked down to ensure your money is passed swiftly to the motor manufacturer and at regular intrervals.
I already view one manufacturers adverts that finish with a big list of fatuous and unnecessary ‘features’ and think 101 reasons not to buy.
Or the other major manufacturer that has a 24/7 monitoring facility to send out a tow truck on the slightest fender bender.
I am sure there are people that need and want these bolt ons, but they rapidly become compulsory inclusions. Like the car that I USED to have where you need a main dealer visit to adjust the clutch.
Or as james illustrates a camera, cabling, screen and associated circuitry to replace a piece of polished glass. On a safety basis the rear view mirror is 100% reliable.
I agree that these incredible R&D budgets could be better utilised.
Why the obsession with driverless vehicle safety. It’s persistently recited as the reason driverless cars will never catch on. Yet they could hardly do a worse job than our current driver standards with hundreds of thousands of deaths and serious injuries on UK roads every year caused by bad drivers. If the car industry were the airline industry with statistics like that, nothing would be allowed to take off.
The worst part of introducing driverless cars onto roads isn’t the driverless component, it’s drivers of conventional cars who’ll think it a hoot to cut driverless cars up just to see them slam on the brakes or take avoiding action.
As for owning one? Ideally, we won’t have to, we’ll simply use our mobile phones to arrange for one to be at our door when we need it, much like a taxi, only much cheaper. We wouldn’t have to pay tens of thousands of pounds for the convenience of having millions of cars sitting in our drives, cluttering up kerbsides or in car parks for 20+ hours a day.
Also to bear in mind that systems are designed (If done properly) to fail safely, so if there is a sensor issue, or if a tyre pressure falls or if a brake efficiency decreases the car will be programmed to take itself off to the side of the road or off the roads completely. The lack of which constant monitorig is of course is a major hazard to road safety today
As I read these comments, I am shocked that folks are so willing to allow this mode of technology to hold sway over their livelihood. It is a proven fact that any electronic system can and will be hacked. WOW !!
actually the taxi option looks increasingly relevant. A New York city dweller associate in the 70s had two cars: he and his wife both had constant vandalage(is there such a word) service bills, and all the other direct costs associated with ownership. he did two ‘deals’.
The local taxi firm he paid $1,000 up-front: with the proviso “when I call, be there: I have already paid for this trip!” he also did a deal with a well known car hire-firm -the one that used to try harder! he guaranteed to take a car every other weekend: and would pay a flat-fee (whatever the milage he did: indeed sometimes he did not even take-the cat but paid anyway. Being a textile technologist…marginal costings were well understood! After two years he was about $4,000 better off, always had an immaculate car for out of town trips, no parking issues…definitely a win-win situation. Did I do the same? I didn’t, but why not I still don’t know!
Best
Mike B
for cat read car!
Would it work in places where nobody obeys the rules of the road and where that is actually essential in some cases? Where there are cultural conventions about how to deal with narrow streets, how agressively to push in etc?
Having said that, the use to me is rather obvious. I drive to the airport and my car drives itself home. On return it collects me. I go into town where there is no parking – it goes home so that my wife can use it and it comes back when I need it. Etc etc.
I love driving , cycling and serious walking and the human brain takes some beating by machine to anticipate avoid and undertake continuous risk assessment. Road pot hole, speed restrictors, the hidden small child, the sudden appearance from a farm gate of a panicked animal, impending changes in the weather, the ability to decide what is the best action to take when both option are not good etc. I would prefer that driver less technology be restricted to buses which ply same routes and spend a lot more time and technology on driver training. Technology is a great assistance but poor master.
Driverless technology will be the biggest breakthrough since the invention of the motorcar. The sudden shift in productivity will see a massive leap in the growth of the economy. No longer will workers spend hours at the wheel unproductive. Instead they can be writing reports, preparing for meetings, doing engineering design. You will also be able to plan your journey better as an integrated transport network will give you greater surety of an arrival time. Transportation costs will plummet as the cost of a driver is stripped from the bill. This will mean lower prices. With road pricing becoming commonplace the road network will become more efficient. More important than all of this is the number of deaths and serious injuries on the roads will plummet. Easing the burden on an all ready beleaguered health service. What’s not to love and embrace?
Is anyone else now thinking….. how can I make a driverless car stop to let me out of a junction in London rush hour? Surely its protective mode must stop if you just drive infront of it???
When will the first car manufacture programm the car to have priority over others because it is the expensive luxury model? and will it be German? When is Top Gear back?(the real trio).
You turn off autonomous mode. And we don’t know when Clarkson and his overgrown adolescent friends will be back – have you thought of consulting a listings magazine?
It seems I’m in the minority when I say that this kind of technology, although having some merit, should never fully replace the human driver. Yes, install it in public transport that follows a set route, as Peter suggests, but to potentially have every car (or transport pod) ‘driven’ by computer is asking for trouble. The technology may be amazing to some, but as we relinquish our control to robots/software/AI more and more, so we take away the ability to make decisions that are seemingly illogical yet the best course of action – eg – there is an incident ahead and to escape you must drive the wrong way along a one-way street. How would a computer deal with that? The human response would be a contravention of the highway code.
Science fiction often becomes science fact, and I point to films (without naming them) that may be portents of doom – helper robots that revolt and ‘protect’ humans from exerting their will because it’s self-destructive; a defence system that quickly determines humans to be its enemy and unleashes nuclear armageddon; androids that kill the crew of their spaceship because they’ve been programmed to carry out a secret mission. And as others have mentioned, computers can be just as fallible as humans: hacking, viruses, software crashes, coding errors, hardware failures… Instead of wasting money on limited-appeal technology like autonomous cars, it could be far better used for modern, integrated transport networks like those in Germany or developing more efficient and economical modes of propulsion.
I don’t want to be George Jetson, I’m quite happy driving my Focus, thanks very much
How ridiculous that there is even a ‘debate’ about whether AVs could be safer or not.
Driverless cars can’t get drunk
Driverless cars can’t get high on drugs
Driverless cars don’t get ill
Driverless cars don’t get tired
Driverless cars don’t get angry
Driverless cars won’t have failing eyesight, hearing or reflexes
Driverless cars aren’t in a hurry
Driverless cars won’t get distracted by mobile phones, loud music or talk radio
Driverless cars won’t be able to exceed the speed limit thanks to GPS tracking
Driverless cars will be designed to keep the correct separation distance thanks to IoT sensors
Driverless cars won’t keep on repeating the same mistakes – accident reports will feed into updated code and lead to better hazard awareness
Bye bye Boy Racers and bye bye road rage.
“I’m sorry Dave, I cannot open the Pod (bay) door…..”
Don’t worry about “driverless cars”. White van man will see them all off very quickly!
Spoken like an old woman: “Firstly, I don’t know if I’d trust it.”
Yet you trust the autopilot when you’re in an airplane, 33.000 foot up in the sky.
An aeroplane operates within a highly defined and controlled system of corridors free from objects that one can crash into (both static and essentially moving at random). Personally I’m not sure if I’d trust an autonomous car at this stage unless, like aircraft with their autopilots, there were a network of controllers in support and a minimum operating separation between vehicles of 3 miles.
Seymor,
Since when at 33,000 feet up were you surrounded by cars, juggernauts, white van men, cyclists, taxi’s etc etc? As far as I am aware, the incidences of autopilot failure in an aircraft are extremely small and if the pilot does have a problem, it can be very quickly and safely dealt with without having to worry about the truck next to you. My biggest concern with “driverless cars” is the total unpredictability of other drivers around to you. I would be very interested to see what happens when you are being tailgated by the idiot behind and the truck you are overtaking suddenly decides to pull out. If your car brakes, it gets hit from behind. If it tries to evade, where does it go? If it was being driven by driver, you would probably have anticipated the truck pull out and avoided the situation. I am not certain a driverless car could undertake such anticipation. OK, it’s not the car’s fault if the accident occurs, but never-the-less that’s probably the end of your journey. I speak as a professional driver who has witnessed and been involved in just such scenarios several times, especially on motorways, fortunately without accident.
This technology will be made to work, like all technologies it will be driven by economics your manual piloted, personally owned car will be unattainable as cost of ownership favors the autonomous vehicle and penalizes manual cars, but that aside the real driver is in commercial vehicles, trucks that don’t need rest periods tireless van deliveries, maximum utilization of assets for maximum capital gain
But without a complete change in the way vehicle insurance operates in the UK, it will never happen! The constant need to prove ‘fault’ in a claim will see that the only people who make money out of this will be the legal profession. We would need to change to a simple central ‘pot’ that pays out for damage and injury irrespective of fault; otherwise arguments over responsibilities between owner, dealer, manufacturer, software supplier, programmer, etc., etc., will last forever.
Sometimes the question is not ‘can we make this’, but ‘do we actually want it’ and ‘will it enhance our lives or diminish them’.
All this talk of driverless cars being safer, is only (potentially) the case if the human doesn’t decide to take control, eg I am late – but this stupid car won’t let me speed – result – put into driver mode and put you foot down.
Another example, sensors fail so when the lazy person reliant on a driverless car gets into a situation where they need to take control because technology has failed them!!!!!
Spend the research money on something that is actually useful.
Frankly, you have only to see the simply insane driving of many on the roads around Cambridge to realise such technology cannot come soon enough. There has been a fatality in this area nearly everyday for the last few weeks, and I suspect, in many similar areas in the country. The road system simply cannot cope with the vast increase of traffic in what used to be a quiet country area.