Researchers in the European Union are using telematics to create “road trains” that join the benefits of carpooling with the freedom of driving alone.
The latest concept, part of the EU’s Safe Road Trains for the Environment initiative, groups cars with similar destinations into road trains over long stretches of highway. The lead vehicle will be driven by an experienced motorist — it may even be a bus that regularly travels the route — while the functions of each following vehicle will be automatically controlled and tethered to the actions of the lead car so that individual drivers can hammer out e-mails or eat breakfast.
Unfortunately I see big legal liability issues with any proposal to totally automate driving. What if the one driver makes a mistake? Or what if a car in the train suffers a mechanical failure? Or what if one of the car computers suffers a failure or a software bug? The technology could be much safer than conventional driving. But when the inevitable accident happens so do the lawsuits. Do lawsuits pose less of an obstacle in Europe?
The energy savings from this approach would be considerable because people wouldn't hit the brakes more than needed. Also, brakes would even last longer.
| Share | | Randall Parker, 2009 November 10 11:25 PM Robotics Cars |
Why not just have a fully automated system along pre-determined routes, with no human drivers whatsoever? With GPS, surely this technology is not far off.
The really spectacular crash will happen when the driver of the 2nd car dies en route or fails to wake up at the destination when the train breaks up and all the drivers have to start driving again.
Agree that there's a significant obstacle here in lawsuits, as well as, and independent from, some technical and feasibility challenges. The lawsuit problem faces any really innovative new technology. If cars or airplanes were invented today, they'd be drowned in lawsuits. By failing to reform the system, we prevent any really large changes in major kinds of infrastructure.
Liability is a legitimate issue with this concept.
Imagine the fun hackers could have. Better than remote-controlled cars. I'll look for the disasters on YouTube.
Well, at least 3 of the commenters above have experience living in countries that will not face American-style legal threats. We are going to see this technology take off outside of the United States first. Shanghai to Beijing no-hands.
Indeed, Europe is known for breaking heads to implement visionary ideas. Why let voluntary action get in the way of a good idea, until of course it goes to far and tries to invade another communist area.
Densans will not be able to pull off any such project large scale.
With generalized automation you must go for the lowest common denominator.
Fully automated roadways and cars, a la Minority Report, are the only way to fix large scale traffic issues with any significant success.
I'd love it it wern't so - but it is - no reason to kid ourselves.
Why not spend the money on telepresence robots?
Instead of actually driving to work, remote in to your virtual self from home?
Then leave the roads to people and cars/trucks who need to actually move stuff around.