First driverless cars allowed on roads this year

Rroff said:
When I'm driving my pickup I seem to be a target on the dual carriageway for people who seem to be using adaptive cruise control or something, possibly other stuff like lane assist as well. I not infrequently get people sitting way to close on my tail obviously their attention mostly off the road taking a phone call or eating, etc. with the vehicle far too precisely adjusting to my speed changes to not be a computer in control. Then if I speed up to overtake something instead of smoothly following on as other drivers do they speed up, slow down (or hit a threshold and stop speeding up), speed up, slow down before the driver reacts to the situation.

How anyone is dumb enough to think that a good idea boggles my mind.
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Yes and when the one they are following so closely has to slam on the brakes, they rear end them if their own car's brakes arent as potent.
 
Nasher said:
Yes and when the one they are following so closely has to slam on the brakes, they rear end them if their own car's brakes arent as potent.
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Also tyres and their condition and type in that equation - or even something as simple as an unfortunate timing with a section where part of it has been repaved giving different stopping distances over those patches.
 
We have to start somewhere I guess, but I can't help thinking lots of other things need to change first before this becomes mainstream or even reliable.
 
Key question for me is when do we get true driverless cars (essentially your own personal virtual chauffeur), rather than cars that can drive themselves but still need a driver behind the wheel.
 
Housey said:
We have to start somewhere I guess, but I can't help thinking lots of other things need to change first before this becomes mainstream or even reliable.
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I think we need to bear in mind that despite the slightly sensationalist approach of the opening article, all this proposal is actually talking about is systems that amount to an advanced combo of adaptive cruise and lane assist at slow speeds on motorways. If it weren't for legislation, there are plenty of cars out there already that are probably perfectly capable of this but currently have built in restrictions so you can't use them indefinitely.
 
200sols said:
^ People seem oblivious to the fact the UK has some of the safest roads anywhere.
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I'm interested to hear how you came to that conclusion?

Just because we may be better than some other countries, doesn't mean we're safe. SafER yes, safe, no. Well.....this is based on things I have seen around my own city at least :D
 
Presumably because he looked at some statistics, which show that in Europe, only Sweden has less road deaths per million inhabitants.
Making us second safest in Europe, which in itself, boasts some of the safest roads in the world.

From a quick Google search:
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/uk-roads-revealed-to-be-second-safest-in-europe/

So, arriving at the conclusion that "the UK has some of the safest roads anywhere" seems fair on the face of it, no?

Of course, if you use the word "safe" as an absolute, then no, driving will never be "safe". You're climbing into a metal and glass box and whizzing around in close proximity to other metal and glass boxes. A 100% safety record will probably never be achieved, even with driverless cars (which, lets be honest, can't be made totally infallible) - so appreciating just how relatively safe our roads currently are without them is important if you're going to use your own anecdotal experiences of safety to justify their adoption.

For clarity, I'm not really against driverless cars at some point. I can see it being amazing for motorway travel in particular. But we're still a long way off.
 
Rroff said:
When I'm driving my pickup I seem to be a target on the dual carriageway for people who seem to be using adaptive cruise control or something, possibly other stuff like lane assist as well. I not infrequently get people sitting way to close on my tail obviously their attention mostly off the road taking a phone call or eating, etc. with the vehicle far too precisely adjusting to my speed changes to not be a computer in control. Then if I speed up to overtake something instead of smoothly following on as other drivers do they speed up, slow down (or hit a threshold and stop speeding up), speed up, slow down before the driver reacts to the situation.

How anyone is dumb enough to think that a good idea boggles my mind.
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I doubt that is adaptive cruise at play there. I have my car set to the shortest "very close" on the distance settings and it is still over two chevrons back from the car in front on the motorway. I'm sure they vary but I doubt any manufacturers let you set the distance below the minimum recommended two second gap.
 
lordrobs said:
I doubt that is adaptive cruise at play there. I have my car set to the shortest "very close" on the distance settings and it is still over two chevrons back from the car in front on the motorway. I'm sure they vary but I doubt any manufacturers let you set the distance below the minimum recommended two second gap.
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It isn't so much tailgating as it is the constant close distance they sit behind you - it may be around 2 seconds though that would be stretching it - it is definitely a computer doing the work though as you'll see their attention elsewhere and suddenly look around in reaction to the vehicle slowing down to see what is going on! - it is very distinct to someone who is driving normally behind you - even the ones that tailgate.
 
lordrobs said:
I doubt that is adaptive cruise at play there. I have my car set to the shortest "very close" on the distance settings and it is still over two chevrons back from the car in front on the motorway. I'm sure they vary but I doubt any manufacturers let you set the distance below the minimum recommended two second gap.
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<insert Clarkson adjusting the adaptive cruise to full on Audi mode>
 
Rroff said:
It isn't so much tailgating as it is the constant close distance they sit behind you - it may be around 2 seconds though that would be stretching it - it is definitely a computer doing the work though as you'll see their attention elsewhere and suddenly look around in reaction to the vehicle slowing down to see what is going on! - it is very distinct to someone who is driving normally behind you - even the ones that tailgate.
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Slowing down and then booting it away is quite a fun game. See if you can get out of range and they have to keep taking over :D

Another one is go alongside people on the phone on dual carriageways and honk, watch them startle and launch their phone around the car (they get very angry).
 
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Nasher said:
Another one is go alongside people on the phone on dual carriageways and honk, watch them startle and launch their phone around the car (they get very angry).
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That is a favourite of mine. Had one bloke follow up by tailgating me from about an inch away. Clearly the front and rear dashcam is less visible than I thought..
 
SkodaMart said:
My Honda Civic has almost killed us 2x with automatic emergency braking.
I’m getting to the stage now where I’m going to start turning it off.
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Just turn it off.

I just turn all that **** off, everything except ABS which most vehicles you can't anyway.
 
You can pull the ABS fuse to turn it off. I don't recommend it on big, heavy modern cars though. You'll flat spot the tyres instantly :D
 
Nasher said:
Slowing down and then booting it away is quite a fun game. See if you can get out of range and they have to keep taking over :D
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I thought they all just revert to normal cruise control once the car in front is out of range.
Rroff said:
It isn't so much tailgating as it is the constant close distance they sit behind you - it may be around 2 seconds though that would be stretching it - it is definitely a computer doing the work though as you'll see their attention elsewhere and suddenly look around in reaction to the vehicle slowing down to see what is going on! - it is very distinct to someone who is driving normally behind you - even the ones that tailgate.
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I've only used ACC in a VW and Seat so maybe others are different but my experience is that they are very conservative systems. My one lets the car in front pull a bit of a gap then slowly latches back on to the pre-set distance, which as I've already mentioned is so big even at the (closest setting) that people will happily pull into the gap. It's like being towed by a long length of elastic rather than a short tow bar :p

I can't say I'm too bothered about these interim 'driverless' stages. When I can sit on my laptop from my backseat office or recline back watching a movie... then I'll be interested in self drive.
 
lordrobs said:
I thought they all just revert to normal cruise control once the car in front is out of range.
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Seems to be what happens but from a 3rd person perspective it looks like they speed up and then slow down - in reality they speed up to a certain threshold then stop getting faster. If you speed up to overtake a vehicle though it looks like they speed up, slow down, speed up and then slow down again as the system adjusts to you and then catching up with the vehicle you've overtaken.

EDIT: Depends a bit on the system and circumstances though - in my parent's VW it sometimes drops out of adaptive mode and won't resume to a higher speed again until you manually take over if it slows you down for a vehicle turning off, etc.
 
wonder what this 10 second malarkey is about, is it a case of as long as you take over within 10s of the car asking you to then anything that happens while the car is in complete control (ie any point before that 10s is up) is not legally your responsibility?

bet your insurance would still go up regardless, because reasons.
 
200sols said:
I'd have thought starting it on the motorways would be easiest, nice open clearly defined lanes, nowhere near the number of obstacles you find in 30 zones, no narrow lanes, no parked cars. I don't think UK towns and cities are anywhere near ready for driverless cars.
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You haven't driven on the M60 recently have you. Lol
I can think of two sections that have narrow leaves and many areas where the leaves are so poorly defined if it's raining you can't actually see the lane markings, even in the dry my car fails to see them for lane assistants.
 
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