ABD condemns 'smart' systems

They're not clever, they're useless

By PH Staff / Friday, 25 August 2006 / Loading comments

Could ISA cope with this?

ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) should be re-named as USELESS (Unintelligent Speed Engineering Lowering Existing Safety Standards) according to the Association of British Drivers (ABD).

The ISA system being planned by the government to control the speed of vehicles, has just two inputs, the speed of the vehicle and the posted speed limit, which it looks up from the location given by a satellite navigation system, and it matches one to the other. That is not intelligence -- in no way can ISA be described as 'intelligent', said the ABD.

Vehicles, however, do need intelligent speed adaptation. The ABD reckoned we need an ISA system that includes:

Visual inputs as well as speed so it can determine what speed is appropriate, given traffic patterns and likely actions of other road users.
An ability to determine the weather, state of the road surface, gauge in advance how gradients and bends in the road will affect the safe speed of the vehicle
Audio inputs and motion sensors, so it can tell how the vehicle is handling.
Pre-learned data to predict how different vehicles handle so as to be able to adjust the safe speed to that particular vehicle, and it should be continually adding to its store of learned data.
A very powerful computer which can process all the inputs in real time and output the safe speed for that moment.
In addition to having control of the throttle and brakes, the ISA system should have control of the steering and ancillary controls as well. It should be programmed with an instinct for its own survival and self-preservation, as well as a strong desire not to cause damage to other such systems or to vehicles fitted with them.

When we can come up with a system which can do all that then they should be made compulsory on all vehicles, reckoned the ABD, adding that this was a pretty good description of a human driver.

ABD Chairman Brian Gregory said: "The only real intelligence in a vehicle's control system is found between the ears of the driver. We blunt that intelligence at our peril."