Should non-autonomous vehicles be banned from motorways?

[lestiq]

cptsideways said:

Lol, you don't drive a modern car, with throttle lag, touchscreen lag, system crashes or badly calibrated radar cruise control do you ?

hi you must be the past, the man is talking about progress.

OP. Yes in the future I believe they totally should be autonomous on motorways particularly, are people on here seriously going to defend they enjoy the british motorway experience in its current archaic....???

Edited by lestiq on Tuesday 11th October 14:11

[Mark Wibble]

The electronics won't be running a boggo version of Windows10 or OSX so you can't compare with domestic computers for a start. There are plenty of safety critical computer systems out there doing stuff day-to-day without us even realising because nothing much goes wrong.

To me the big difference would be the scale of automated systems being owned and operated by the general public; would you need an extra license?! Train drivers, pilots, ATC, nuclear powerplant operators- they have lots of regulation to make sure that the safety critical systems are used in an appropriate way and how to approach emergency scenarios, would we have that for drivers? We'd also end up needing an MOT-tack-on test to ensure that all sensors operate & communicate as required with maintenance to follow-up problems. Then legalities & insurance costs.

I know the current defence for car companies is that the driver remains responsible all the time, but that'll become more difficult to hide behind.

And of course it may take some manufactures getting it completely wrong before everyone starts getting it right.

[MikeGoodwin]

fk me the outlook on our automotive future is a bleak one.

[otolith]

DottyMR2 said:

Would it be a central system which manages all the cars on the road from one central hub to make sure they don't crash into each other?

No, it would be the kind of independent, distributed, autonomous systems Google have been building, which have already logged two million miles of autonomous driving on public roads.

Seriously, have you been living under a rock?

[ryan1684]

I'd imagine it would be introduced as a single lane project, the way the car pool lanes are in america. Although that doesnt cover the issue of leaving or joining the motorway safely through the other lanes of human drivers!

[otolith]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I think it's likely that there will be smart routing going on (satnavs already do that) but the actual driving of the car is going to depend on the on-board processing, simply because the world is full of things which are not centrally controlled cars.

[tankplanker]

lestiq said:

hi you must be the past, the man is talking about progress.

OP. Yes in the future I believe they totally should be autonomous on motorways particularly, are people on here seriously going to defend they enjoy the british motorway experience in its current archaic....???

Edited by lestiq on Tuesday 11th October 14:11

Agreed, the motorway is a hateful experience now with the amount of traffic, road works and enforcement cameras. I already choose the XC90 over my other cars for motorway driving so I can use the autopilot on my XC90 as much as possible to avoid the drudgery. Instead of having to maintain the gap to the car in front to a safe distance, my speed to the ever changing smart motorway limits, my position within a lane I'm free to concentrate on what the cars around me are doing.

UK gov is talking about allowing fully autonomous driving, to the level that you can read a book or fall asleep at the wheel, by 2025. I would be very surprised if the big players in this field are not ready before then.

It is only a matter of time before we start seeing enforcement cameras on all main motorways and A roads that are measuring and enforcing average speeds not just the speed near the camera. When that happens I'll lose all interest in 90% of my driving, so bring on autonomous driving as we aren't going to win the war against the enforcement cameras.

[Craikeybaby]

I think regulations and practicalities are lagging behind the technology at the moment. If the technology isn't ready now, it will be by he end of the decade. The OPs suggestion of restricting motorways to autonomous vehicles to allow platooning etc is a good one, the biggest problem to overcome will be stopping people driving their regular cars on to the motorway after following out of date sat nav directions.

[Alias218]

I think this idea has merit, just not banning dumb cars from the entire motorway network. One mans interesting A-road/B-road jaunt is another man's arduous journey. I don't fancy driving from Essex to *insert far away land* using only A-roads and minor roads.

Perhaps utilising the offside lane aka 'the fast lane' as an autonomous only lane? Of course, how you stop eejits in their dumb cars from joining said lane illegally is another matter.

[Mr Snrub]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

But will they want to lose all the revenue the cameras bring in?

[otolith]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

[tankplanker]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

If I'm driving for myself then I'll also stick to the B roads, but when its for work I don't have the luxury both for time and the fact I only get paid for the shortest route, which is usually the motorway.

At the risk of getting way off topic, Brexit's impact on infrastructure spending is yet to be proven either way. We may decided to try and spend our way out of the hole with infrastructure projects as we tried (poorly thought out) cuts before.

As electric cars become more popular they'll want to start an alternative charging mechanism, cameras and black boxes would be the ideal way to enforce that. Camera would make a nice back up to the obvious cottage industry that will spring up hacking the black boxes as soon as there is enough of them and a big enough incentive to spend the effort doing so.

[nicfaz]

Absolutely ban non-autonomous cars from motorways as soon as there is critical mass and only if couple by a suspension of speed limits. Absolutely.

I wonder how the train companies are planning for a future (say 8 years time) where you can climb in the back of your electric car in Manchester and shout "Central London!", then fall asleep. In about an hour and a half you are there, total cost £5 of electricity.

I wonder how the Government are planning for the massive loss in fuel tax income that a mass move to electric cars will mean - they can't just tax electricity. Road tolls perhaps?

I love cars, I love my massive 5.4l V8, but I think it is now very clear that battery technology has reached the point where 80%+ of the population would be better served by an electric car that was affordable. We just need the prices to get sensible.

I love driving, but who doesn't want a world where all those people who only drive because they have to, don't have to drive but a nice, safe, vigilant computer does it for them? I bet bikers do - no more grannies pulling out on you because they can't see / think quick enough. No more tools running red lights because they are late. No more 17-year-olds doing suicidal overtaking manoeuvres. No more road rage. No more drunk/drugged driving. Just safe, cheap personal transport. I might get a speed triple and venture out on 2 wheels whilst I'm still able.

[DottyMR2]

otolith said:

DottyMR2 said:

Would it be a central system which manages all the cars on the road from one central hub to make sure they don't crash into each other?

No, it would be the kind of independent, distributed, autonomous systems Google have been building, which have already logged two million miles of autonomous driving on public roads.

Seriously, have you been living under a rock?

No I've not, I'm fully aware of google cars. However do these google cars drive at 100mph+, within an inch of cars to the front/back/side all seamlessly moving past each other while constantly working out the most efficient flow for all the cars involved? Have they had to make ethical decisions yet like choosing who dies when a crash is unaviodable?

I was addressing the OPs idea of what autonomous cars could be capable of and pointing out there is a lot more to go before we could have traffic flow like that. Current google cars drive like us, have large gaps between them, stick to our speed limits etc. Tesla have also been doing good work on their system however it still has a small habit of randomly spearing the car off towards the nearest tree.

Autonomous systems are good, we'll not be seeing iRobot style traffic flow for a while though which is the point I was making.

The jetpack comment was also a joke based on what some stories say against reality. Anyone who took that literally is really lacking in some departments.

Edited by DottyMR2 on Tuesday 11th October 16:46

[topless360]

Pretty much all motorway traffic jams are caused by human error, either in the form of an accident or someone following too closely, lighting up their brake lights and then causing everyone in the train of cars behind to grind to an eventual halt. The majority of drivers are unable to keep a constant and safe gap to the car in front.

Having a 100% autonomous motorway would solve this issue, it'll work like trains where everyone can travel at 100mph++. Putting my petrolhead bias aside I can't think of any reason why this won't or shouldn't happen.

I just hope that they don't ban us from using our fun cars on A/B roads at the same time because that would be a truly sad day.

[Dave Hedgehog]

Pothole said:

rich888 said:

I've used computers for many years and I rarely see one crash nowadays, and before anyone moans at me, look at aircraft to see just how capable they are of flying tens of thousands of miles without incident.

Computers may not crash but programs often do...or hang. Aircraft don't have to contend with many junctions, hills, curves or other vehicles close to them, do they?

flying a plane automatically is extremely simple, there are very few variables, there are near infinite variables for a car to deal with, pots holes full of water, ice, startled animals sprinting across a road, drunk killer clowns etc. etc. etc.

[otolith]

DottyMR2 said:

No I've not, I'm fully aware of google cars. However do these google cars drive at 100mph+, within an inch of cars to the front/back/side all seamlessly moving past each other while constantly working out the most efficient flow for all the cars involved? Have they had to make ethical decisions yet like choosing who dies when a crash is unaviodable?

Not yet, no. Though as a problem to solve, high speed motorway driving is going to be considerably less challenging than those they are currently working with (urban traffic flow). The ethical question grants them more "intelligence" than they need. They have a remit not to hit anything. They won't hit anything unless there is an error in their programming. If something enters their course in a way they could not have anticipated, they will try to avoid it without hitting anything else. If they can't do that, they will brake and hit it as slowly as they can. They will make these decisions more quickly and more effectively than we can. Making them solve trolley problems is more than can be expected of them, and is not somewhere a manufacturer with any sense will want to go.

DottyMR2 said:

I was addressing the OPs idea of what autonomous cars could be capable of and pointing out there is a lot more to go before we could have traffic flow like that. Current google cars drive like us, have large gaps between them, stick to our speed limits etc. Tesla have also been doing good work on their system however it still has a small habit of randomly spearing the car off towards the nearest tree.

Once they are capable of communicating with each other, the possibility of autonomous road trains becomes viable. There is already tech in development to do this, again it's a much easier task than the hard end of full autonomy.

http://www.sartre-project.eu/en/Sidor/default.aspx

In terms of cars driving closer together - the limiting factor when humans are driving is reaction times. Machines are better at that than we are, and machines capable of peer to peer communication are even better still.

[corozin]

Despite all this amazing technological development towards autonomous cars, I'm still waiting for Jaguar Land Rover to implement a technology which forces owners of Discoverys and RR Sports to use thier bloody indicators before making even a simple manoeuvre like a motorway lane change.

[Mr Snrub]

nicfaz said:

Absolutely ban non-autonomous cars from motorways as soon as there is critical mass and only if couple by a suspension of speed limits. Absolutely.

I wonder how the train companies are planning for a future (say 8 years time) where you can climb in the back of your electric car in Manchester and shout "Central London!", then fall asleep. In about an hour and a half you are there, total cost £5 of electricity.

I wonder how the Government are planning for the massive loss in fuel tax income that a mass move to electric cars will mean - they can't just tax electricity. Road tolls perhaps?

I love cars, I love my massive 5.4l V8, but I think it is now very clear that battery technology has reached the point where 80%+ of the population would be better served by an electric car that was affordable. We just need the prices to get sensible.

I love driving, but who doesn't want a world where all those people who only drive because they have to, don't have to drive but a nice, safe, vigilant computer does it for them? I bet bikers do - no more grannies pulling out on you because they can't see / think quick enough. No more tools running red lights because they are late. No more 17-year-olds doing suicidal overtaking manoeuvres. No more road rage. No more drunk/drugged driving. Just safe, cheap personal transport. I might get a speed triple and venture out on 2 wheels whilst I'm still able.

If self driven cars are banned do you honestly believe they will still allow motorbikes on the road?

Edited by Mr Snrub on Tuesday 11th October 20:40

[ZX10R NIN]

Does anyone really believe that they would raise the speed limit? Autonomous or not there is pretty much no chance of 100mph motorways.