Autonomous Vehicles

Why? What problem would emergency services have?

Much like today they would be allowed to drive around road others are not. In fact it would be a lot easier as the automated vehicles could all be programmed to go one way or the other out of the vehicles way as it goes through. At a guess thing slike response times would improve significantly.

Give it a rest. Have you ever tried to get across London in rush hour?
 
Driverless cars and foot traffic don't mix. Add a emergency vichles and with people of all things driving them at speed. This isn't North America.

You still haven’t actually explained what you mean. What’s going to be the issue for emergency servicrs, why are criminals on scooters going to have a field day?

As an FYI I grew up around London and lived and worked in London for four years up until recently. So try harder next time ;) your trolling is weak. :p
 
I say cut all private cars from inner city and replace them with trams and or pods.

The question would then be. How to deal with the car owning residents who live in the cities.

Many wouldn't be able to get to work.

I live on the outskirts of a town. Public transport is so crap I'd have to take 3 busses to get to work 12 miles away due to lack of routes, it would cost way more than running my car and it would take 3x as long to get there. Plus I'd have to sit with the diseased public.
 
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Actually though its more likely the opposite, when you look at the road trains ideas they are suggesting,

Basically, car 1 would start and car 2 would communicate with car 1, would then pull up very close to car 1 and would just follow car 1 directions for accelerate, brake etc
This brings benefits of reduced fuel and space needed.
The chains would form, then when someone needed to break the chain their car would advise, pull back, remove itself from the chain, the car that was following would then speed up (and any following it) and close the gap

If anything your utopia of loads of big gaps would be the opposite, large lines of cars driving so close together you wouldn't get in a gap if you tried.

No but you could force them to brake by driving close and causing a potential accident! Or just supplement the trains with power so you can take 3-4 cars at once! Also the AI would see me coming on the other side of the road. Communicate with the other side of the road to stop as I am coming through. At least they won't be able to flash their lights at me because AI will be controlling that as well.

As I am human I wouldn't give a damn whereas the AI will do its up most to protect its occupants :D
 
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Also that would only work if they all had the exact same tyres and brakes, with the exact same wear on them. Otherwise they would all have slightly different braking distances and there would be a massive automated pileup.
 
Many wouldn't be able to get to work.

I live on the outskirts of a town. Public transport is so crap I'd have to take 3 busses to get to work 12 miles away due to lack of routes, it would cost way more than running my car and it would take 3x as long to get there. Plus I'd have to sit with the diseased public.

Then public transport would have to step up their game.

Inner cities should be reserved for emergency, commercial vehicles (charge the vans and trucks to come into the city). And public transport.
 
He did say private, so I assume he was still allowing public owned to operate in the area.

I assume that cities talking of banning ICE cars will still allow commercials and ambulances to operate. I cant imagine "sorry your husband died, it was unfortunate, if only he had a heart attack a bit further out from the city we would have been able to get to him in our ambulance" ;)
 
He did say private, so I assume he was still allowing public owned to operate in the area.

I assume that cities talking of banning ICE cars will still allow commercials and ambulances to operate. I cant imagine "sorry your husband died, it was unfortunate, if only he had a heart attack a bit further out from the city we would have been able to get to him in our ambulance" ;)

They are talking of banning diesels, not all ICE cars. Because of the particulates they pump out and get inside buildings where it becomes concentrated. Petrol fumes don't have that dangerous part to them.
 
That would be by far the easiest way of dealing with it.
I guess if they did (I don't believe they ever would directly cut them all out) you would have to have carpark type places outside the city for those people. who have to use the city transport to take them to their car. Sort of like a park n ride operation....

Ever since finding out about this 'park and ride' service (which was only a couple of years ago. Whilst I was in Bath). I've been wondering why parts of London doesn't have a similar service.
 
No but you could force them to brake by driving close and causing a potential accident! Or just supplement the trains with power so you can take 3-4 cars at once! Also the AI would see me coming on the other side of the road. Communicate with the other side of the road to stop as I am coming through. At least they won't be able to flash their lights at me because AI will be controlling that as well.

As I am human I wouldn't give a damn whereas the AI will do its up most to protect its occupants :D

Agree so more evidence for taking drivers like this off the road, glad you agree ;)
In order to make progress some of the least progressive often have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming as they aren't capable of making an informed decision :P

To be honest though the roads I have seen some limited testing on and they always use as demonstrations are multi lane single direction not roads with oncoming traffic. They would probably not logically expand to that scenario until driver cars were very rare.
 
In reality you’ll probably find it the other way round. With automated vehicles being inherently safer and with quicker reactions you may well see a higher speed limit.

Perhaps on motorways the crawler lane will be relegated to all non automated vehicles, limited to 60, with no legal way of overtaking, and then the other one or two lanes would be dedicated to automated vehicles shooting past at 100mph, with gaps of 1-2 metres between them.

This is under the presumption that everything is equal. We are capitalist. The brakes of an Aston Martin will not be the same as an Toyota Prius. So following each other with a 1 meter gap will be physically impossible unless the performance of the Aston is artificially lowered to the same as a Prius which would never happen.
 
Agree so more evidence for taking drivers like this off the road, glad you agree ;)
In order to make progress some of the least progressive often have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming as they aren't capable of making an informed decision :p

To be honest though the roads I have seen some limited testing on and they always use as demonstrations are multi lane single direction not roads with oncoming traffic. They would probably not logically expand to that scenario until driver cars were very rare.

Hey I am all for progress but I am also a realist. There is a world out there not just the UK. Please tell me when in our lifetime are we going to have driverless cars driving within 1 meter of each other in the Republic of Congo or say India or Pakistan?
 
This is under the presumption that everything is equal. We are capitalist. The brakes of an Aston Martin will not be the same as an Toyota Prius. So following each other with a 1 meter gap will be physically impossible unless the performance of the Aston is artificially lowered to the same as a Prius which would never happen.

Most emergency braking where they see this being used is caused by drivers doing something stupid. If the only other vehicles around are operating in a similar fashion then its easy to see how it works out
They don't envision todays vast disparity being included from what i have seen, ie by then the main attraction of an aston vs a fiesta will have disappeared.
 
This is under the presumption that everything is equal. We are capitalist. The brakes of an Aston Martin will not be the same as an Toyota Prius. So following each other with a 1 meter gap will be physically impossible unless the performance of the Aston is artificially lowered to the same as a Prius which would never happen.

You’re forgetting the context. It’s an autonomous system. It would be easy enough to have a minimum breaking requirement. Sure the Aston could break faster and harder, but it doesn’t need to brake at 100% the entire time.

You’re right though. 1m is probably a bit close. The overall context is the important bit though. They will be closer than most vehicles are (recommended at least) today and it’s unlikely you’ll be allowed to weave in and out, even if you physically could, let alone be legally allowed to.
 
It's just a "plan". But in reality they would have to spend a ton of money to make it happen. So it probably won't actually happen.

London is planning to do it with one street and even that is going to be a huge job. It's not just a case of putting barriers up, they have to re-route all the traffic and public transport.

Completely, its going to happen sooner or later.
We always joked locally we bet that Cambridge would race to ban cars first in the UK, looks like Oxford got a jump on them
 
No but you could force them to brake by driving close and causing a potential accident! Or just supplement the trains with power so you can take 3-4 cars at once! Also the AI would see me coming on the other side of the road. Communicate with the other side of the road to stop as I am coming through. At least they won't be able to flash their lights at me because AI will be controlling that as well.

As I am human I wouldn't give a damn whereas the AI will do its up most to protect its occupants :D

So basically you’re advocating fragrantly breaking the law.

Is the only reason you don’t do that now because you may get hurt by slow drivers? Or is it because you’d lose your licence pretty sharpish if you did that regularly...
 
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