Should non-autonomous vehicles be banned from motorways?

[cidered77]

Jim AK said:

grumbledoak said:

karlser said:

To improve saftey and lower emissions, investing in public transport seems the obvious solution to me, why cling to individual transportation and not think further ahead ?
If people are the issue, shouldn't we take the 'individual' part out of the equation ?

Because public transport doesn't work, no matter how much money you throw at it.

This. & removing people's spontaneous descision to do something that's not in their locality.

If I get up & it's a nice day & I fancy going to the coast, it takes 3 hours by train for me, longer if I use South East Trains. I can get to Brighton in under 2 hours by car.

The more I think about this, motorways are the last place I think we need this,, towns & cities are much more dangerous, polluted & congested.

I've been driving a lot in London this month & my average speed has been indicated @ 9 MPH.

Motorways are way better than that!

they are better, but nowhere near good. Anyone who commute regularly with motorway knows the exact time it takes each day of the week under normal conditions, but also knows 1 in 4 will be randomly longer because some idiot crashes.

cities would come next, but - confidence to be built first on motorways I think.

the legal/ethical side of autonomous driving is the most interesting bit - honestly, i've been in a Tesla driving down a country lane in the dark with driver not doing a thing and the technology itself is pretty much there.

For example - you could be getting in a car that under very specific circumstances would be programmed to kill you. Or - take avoiding action to avert a bigger accident involving more people (thus greater litigious risk of course!) that puts you at more risk. I'd like to think if presented with a choice of "orphanage vs. take a chance driving off the cliff" as an extreme example I''d do the right thing, but who knows until you're in that situation. Not just legal, but complex ethical stuff to work out....

[otolith]

cidered77 said:

For example - you could be getting in a car that under very specific circumstances would be programmed to kill you. Or - take avoiding action to avert a bigger accident involving more people (thus greater litigious risk of course!) that puts you at more risk. I'd like to think if presented with a choice of "orphanage vs. take a chance driving off the cliff" as an extreme example I''d do the right thing, but who knows until you're in that situation. Not just legal, but complex ethical stuff to work out....

You avoid the litigious risk by keeping them dumb. It's only when you start programming them to make more sophisticated decisions than "Don't hit anything. If you can't avoid hitting something, hit it as slowly as possible" that your decisions can be questioned.

[Matthen]

No. How am I going to get from deepest darkest Norfolk to the awesome driving roads of Scotland/Wales without a motorway or it taking 10 times longer than it should. I've no desire to sit on crappy congested A roads across the Midlands when there's a perfectly good motorway I should be able to drive on. You want to sit in a car and read the paper, make it a rail car on HS2.

Also, there is no getting round the laws of physics. You have a grid of cars like you've described you run into a simple problem - No matter how quickly the cars can react, if there is an unexpected event - a tyre blowout, bridge jumper, item fallen from lorry etc - whatever, more cars will be involved in a collision then if they had a sensible 2 second (or less sensible 1 second) gap between them, and space either side. You cannot stop 2 tonnes in 0 meters, no matter what is controlling the brakes. Nor can you stop it in 2.5m, so the bloke behind you is going into your arse as well. 5m will be pushing it too...

See where this is going? Yes we could dev software that could handle nose to tail 100 mph cruising, right up to the moment it all goes wrong. Then it will go wrong in a bigger way than if a human was driving. Thus, it'll never happen in the way you describe. What'll actually happen is the cars will be set to rigidly follow at a sensible distance (greater than most people leave at the moment) and move more slowly than you drive now resulting in effectively reducing motorway capacity.

[otolith]

You can have the cars 2cm apart and emergency stop them without them touching if all the cars have exactly the same braking capability applied at exactly the same time. They obviously won't have that, so you will need to leave more space than that. What they do have is vastly faster reactions than we have, and if peer-to-peer communication is established, the ability to all brake at virtually the same instant. So the margin that needs to be left between them is less than that which needs to be left between humans. There is a good reason for wanting to run them closer together - slipstreaming.

[tankplanker]

As much as I want to see peer to peer communication between autonomous cars I can't see it coming until the governments force the manufacturers to do so.

Once you open up these cars to any sort of communication standard then they are going to get hacked and if you connect any drive related system to a communications system then we'll have a very dangerous situation. The manufacturers need very clear sizable penalties to make sure they take security seriously.

[scubadude]

otolith said:

You can have the cars 2cm apart and emergency stop them without them touching if all the cars have exactly the same braking capability applied at exactly the same time. They obviously won't have that, so you will need to leave more space than that. What they do have is vastly faster reactions than we have, and if peer-to-peer communication is established, the ability to all brake at virtually the same instant. So the margin that needs to be left between them is less than that which needs to be left between humans. There is a good reason for wanting to run them closer together - slipstreaming.

No, you can't.

1. The road, vehicle performance and state or repair are too variable, the current legal minimal separation distances are insufficient in inclement weather so autonomous vehicles would still drive no more than 2-3seconds apart at the NSL.

2. The Only way to have autonomous vehicles running nose to tail would be to build a second motorway network mirroring the current one specially designed for them (narrow lanes with continuous lines and higher catch barriers... estimated cost in the UK of 9 Trillion pounds- Not going to happen.

3. A majority of people will refuse or be unable to use them as they don't have £100K for a new car, current evidence suggests it takes about 120+years before all the old cars are off the road- I see the motor museums still take their Horseless carriages for the occasional 4mph spin. If you ban manual cars from motorways you are essentially banning all cars from all roads as the motorway network is unavoidable eventually.

[cidered77]

otolith said:

You can have the cars 2cm apart and emergency stop them without them touching if all the cars have exactly the same braking capability applied at exactly the same time. They obviously won't have that, so you will need to leave more space than that. What they do have is vastly faster reactions than we have, and if peer-to-peer communication is established, the ability to all brake at virtually the same instant. So the margin that needs to be left between them is less than that which needs to be left between humans. There is a good reason for wanting to run them closer together - slipstreaming.

Even if you had a conventional 2 second gap of course you would be travelling more quickly if all cars were linked.

Two obvious obvious examples:

- Light go off at the start of a race: all drivers move off at same time.
- Lights go green at a traffic light on the road, all drivers move one after another.

of course it would be better, and of course you could programme how to deal with an unexpected event safely - or "a lot more safely than using humans".

at pretty much every new innovation and technology forums, or equivalent of forums in days gone ("pubs"!) will be filled with people saying it can't be done and it'll never catch on.... but if it makes sense, and there's money to be made, it will.

[cidered77]

scubadude said:

No, you can't.

1. The road, vehicle performance and state or repair are too variable, the current legal minimal separation distances are insufficient in inclement weather so autonomous vehicles would still drive no more than 2-3seconds apart at the NSL.

2. The Only way to have autonomous vehicles running nose to tail would be to build a second motorway network mirroring the current one specially designed for them (narrow lanes with continuous lines and higher catch barriers... estimated cost in the UK of 9 Trillion pounds- Not going to happen.

3. A majority of people will refuse or be unable to use them as they don't have £100K for a new car, current evidence suggests it takes about 120+years before all the old cars are off the road- I see the motor museums still take their Horseless carriages for the occasional 4mph spin. If you ban manual cars from motorways you are essentially banning all cars from all roads as the motorway network is unavoidable eventually.

of course you can! you start with a single lane, and make it an offence for other drivers to join it. Every car would have a camera anyway, and any system developed to handle unexpected events would have to cope with some bellend thinking they can join the fast lane, although if it's an instant 6 points or ban then it wouldn't be common. Any car with this system would have a minimum spec for stopping distance, and the associated diagnostics to see if it is operating at this spec. All doable, and in time one lane becomes 2, becomes 3. Of course it can be done....

Public perception of true risk is awful, but gradually changes over time, even though it'll never be truly reflective of the actual stats. For example - when was the last time you saw a nervous flyer? 20 years ago white knuckles gripping plane arm-rests were way more common. I would absolutely travel in this system as the odds of death whilst not removed would be lower than if i drove myself. Plus it'd be quicker. Why the chuff not..!

Edit: and in 10/20 years, it's just part of the mainstream anyway. It's just software and cameras, end of the day - the cost is in the R&D and development, not the parts. And the R&D will be spread over millions and millions of new units even within a decade. Airbags and ABS were luxury's a few years back, now every car needs this to get NCAP rating.

Edited by cidered77 on Wednesday 12th October 10:58

[TypeRTim]

Just chucking my 2p worth in, and this is all personal preference/opinion, but I hope that this doesn't come to fruition.

The news about the Germans was actually quite worrying as its yet again politicians knee-jerking to a scandal of their own creation by doing a drastic 'out-law' measure.

I for one can't stand the idea of electric cars, let alone autonomous cars. If i wanted to go long distance without having to pay attention to where i was going, or have a nap whilst on the journey, I would take the train. In fact, that is exactly what I do. Every day. It's what they are designed for.

And also, EV tech is a long way from being mainstream, affordable, reliable and sustainable for it to be the default choice at the moment. Yes, advances have been made in battery tech, but just look at what is happening to Samsung and the Note 7's Lithium Ion battery pack. The very same principal tech behind all current EV battery packs. A minor defect in the manufacturing process can lead to a complete and catastrophic failure of the entire battery pack. Not to mention the environmental impact of producing them.

"Lithium ion batteries are also, together with nickel-metal-hydride batteries, the most energy consuming technologies using the equivalent of 1.6kg of oil per kg of battery produced. They also ranked the worst in greenhouse gas emissions with up to 12.5kg of CO2 equivalent emitted per kg of battery."
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Albrecht/2014-12-16-How-G...

So to put that in to context, to produce the battery pack for a mid-level Tesla Model S that weighs in at around 540kg, that's around 6,750kg of CO2. That's not factoring in the emissions output from the sources used to produce the electricity to charge it, the emissions of the transportation of the various products to and from the factory (lithium is only mined is very specific areas) and the other environmental impacts of lithium mining. And the battery pack will not last the life time of the vehicle due to how batteries inherently lose their charge capacity over time, with Tesla only guaranteeing the pack for 8 years (some model s battery packs have already been replaced). The batteries then are extremely difficult and energy intensive to recycle so most end up in land fill.

Looking back, this is a bit off topic, but autonomous and electric cars are going to go hand in hand and I feel everyone making these rules and regulations lives in a dream world where only the stuff coming from the tail pipe matters. Yes fossil fuels will run out, and yes cars do damage the environment we live in, but look at the wider picture and not just small specific buzz word targets.... Says the owner of a car that is nearly £300 a year to tax due to its CO2 output and only does around 30 to the gallon (but has never had a major part of its running gear replaced in its 10 year drive cycle and hasn't had a drop in range since it was new)

[otolith]

scubadude said:

otolith said:

You can have the cars 2cm apart and emergency stop them without them touching if all the cars have exactly the same braking capability applied at exactly the same time. They obviously won't have that, so you will need to leave more space than that. What they do have is vastly faster reactions than we have, and if peer-to-peer communication is established, the ability to all brake at virtually the same instant. So the margin that needs to be left between them is less than that which needs to be left between humans. There is a good reason for wanting to run them closer together - slipstreaming.

No, you can't.

1. The road, vehicle performance and state or repair are too variable, the current legal minimal separation distances are insufficient in inclement weather so autonomous vehicles would still drive no more than 2-3seconds apart at the NSL.

2. The Only way to have autonomous vehicles running nose to tail would be to build a second motorway network mirroring the current one specially designed for them (narrow lanes with continuous lines and higher catch barriers... estimated cost in the UK of 9 Trillion pounds- Not going to happen.

3. A majority of people will refuse or be unable to use them as they don't have £100K for a new car, current evidence suggests it takes about 120+years before all the old cars are off the road- I see the motor museums still take their Horseless carriages for the occasional 4mph spin. If you ban manual cars from motorways you are essentially banning all cars from all roads as the motorway network is unavoidable eventually.

Your first point misses the caveat in my statement "if all the cars have exactly the same braking capability". They won't have, so an allowance has to be made. The required separation distance is independent of the shared conditions, it relates to differences between cars in when and how hard they brake. It is the same distance on sheet ice and dry tarmac. The limiting factor is reaction time. For any given level of safety, the distance is less for a car which reacts in tens of milliseconds than for a human which might take 1000ms.

The technology already exists. This was achieved and road tested on the public road back in 2012;

http://www.sartre-project.eu/en/press/imagegallery...

Your second and third points assume that these cannot use existing infrastructure shared with current cars. I think that's a false premise.

[browngt3]

Blue Oval84 said:

If PH is still around in 20 years I'd very much like to bump this thread and see who ends up being right, I doubt it will be the Luddites

Quite happy to be a Luddite on this topic. Hell my cars even have manual gearboxes!

[98elise]

tankplanker said:

As much as I want to see peer to peer communication between autonomous cars I can't see it coming until the governments force the manufacturers to do so.

Once you open up these cars to any sort of communication standard then they are going to get hacked and if you connect any drive related system to a communications system then we'll have a very dangerous situation. The manufacturers need very clear sizable penalties to make sure they take security seriously.

Tesla's already do. The autopilot learns, and that's distributed to other cars.

[TypeRTim]

98elise said:

Tesla's already do. The autopilot learns, and that's distributed to other cars.

That's not strictly p2p comms. That's distributed machine learning where the software reports back to a base server which then integrates the new information in to a new version of the software, this is then distributed OTA to other vehicles with the same software as a software update.

peer-to-peer is real time direct comms between the vehicles. So like a car that has another car following it telling the car behind that it is about to brake and slow down so that the following car can prepare and so on. (at least that's my understanding of it)

[otolith]

TypeRTim said:

I for one can't stand the idea of electric cars, let alone autonomous cars. If i wanted to go long distance without having to pay attention to where i was going, or have a nap whilst on the journey, I would take the train. In fact, that is exactly what I do. Every day. It's what they are designed for.

To visit my relatives takes me about 3.5 hours door to door by car. By train, it takes around six hours, maybe five and a half if I use taxis rather than buses at either end.

It's mostly M6 and M5. There is no joy to be had in the journey. If I could sit in the back and do something else while the car did the driving, that would be just fine by me. And if there weren't so many incompetent human idiots driving and crashing their cars, my car journey times might be a bit more reliable.

[300bhp/ton]

rich888 said:

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?

Good point, but Google and Apple cars are already mapping out many miles of roads along with all the junctions, hills and curves and potential accident spots. Cars have been fitted out with proximity detectors since the 1980s so already know where accidents might occur.

As for computers crashing I have to say I can't remember the last time my computer or software crashed.

Now in comparison unleash a new or unqualified driver onto the road and see how they perform in a real life scenario?

Most modern day aircraft crashes occur due to pilot error rather than computer error and most car crashes are due to driver error... you do the maths?

Comparing aircraft to cars is somewhat folly tbh.

Planes have to undergo HUGE regular maintenance and major cost to the owners. No car owner would be able to stomach that. And cars are dealing with far more complex scenarios. As already highlighted.

[Digitalize]

I could see some roads becoming autonomous only, but there'd still have to be a viable alternative. The M6 toll for example, that could become autonomous only.

[TypeRTim]

otolith said:

To visit my relatives takes me about 3.5 hours door to door by car. By train, it takes around six hours, maybe five and a half if I use taxis rather than buses at either end.

It's mostly M6 and M5. There is no joy to be had in the journey. If I could sit in the back and do something else while the car did the driving, that would be just fine by me. And if there weren't so many incompetent human idiots driving and crashing their cars, my car journey times might be a bit more reliable.

Maybe the lesson here is that investment should be made in our rail network to make it a more viable alternative for more people?

[Terminator X]

lestiq said:

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

It may start as m/ways only or city centres however the end game must surely be no human driving. Be careful what you wish for etc.

TX.

[Terminator X]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Technology is coming for new EU built cars:

http://www.stoneacre.co.uk/blog/black-boxes-compul...

"The telematics device will be able to track your car’s speed, braking, cornering, timing and acceleration. This data [may] be used by car insurers to offer discounts for safe drivers."

TX.

[otolith]

TypeRTim said:

otolith said:

To visit my relatives takes me about 3.5 hours door to door by car. By train, it takes around six hours, maybe five and a half if I use taxis rather than buses at either end.

It's mostly M6 and M5. There is no joy to be had in the journey. If I could sit in the back and do something else while the car did the driving, that would be just fine by me. And if there weren't so many incompetent human idiots driving and crashing their cars, my car journey times might be a bit more reliable.

Maybe the lesson here is that investment should be made in our rail network to make it a more viable alternative for more people?

I reckon the rail route is about 35% further than the road route. You start off travelling 70 miles at 90 degrees to the direction you want.

Maybe the lesson is that rail is inherently good for travelling between major conurbations but will always be st for travelling between more remote sites.