Over the last few years I’ve found driving to be increasingly frustrating. Long gone are the days of enjoying gentlemanly behaviour and respect for your fellow road user. Now it seems to be about how quickly you can get from A to B but more than that its a competition, who will exit the roundabout first, who’s car can accelerate quickest and how can I protect the queue I’m in; I will not be overtaken! I’m sure you recognise the issues, vehicles give us a greater sense of invincibility, protecting us from face to face confrontation. I guess that’s why so many feel they can get away with being “rude, obnoxious and daft, and you feel like you’ve have quite enough.” But this lack of respect for others has taken away the pleasure of driving. Getting a wave let alone an acknowledgment, or thanks, from a fellow driver is now the exception, not the rule.
With this need to be more productive with our time comes the restrictions’ our nanny state inflicts upon us. A recent government announcement has suggested we reduce speeds even further, 20mph in most built up areas, 50mph on any road with a bend in it, and but thankfully we shall still be allowed to travel at 70mph on motorways, for now.
One insurance company was working on a “Pay as you Drive” system, using a black box fitted to your car containing Sat-Nav and mobile phone technology. It tracked your location, speed, and times driven and charged you depending on your driving habits. But from what I understood it was going to be prohibitively expensive to introduce so it’s been shelved, for now. Interestingly its main revenue stream was through of the sale of the collected data to such organisations as the government.
Recently I attended a Driver Awareness Course; yes I was caught speeding, 36 in a 30 if you must know, and I found the experience to be incredibly patronising, and ironically very much one way. It did however save me from 3 points on my licence and a £60 fine. The aim of the course is to help you understand why you need to reduce you speed; to increase road safety by not killing other people. I did learn a few things from the course, mainly don't cross your arm over the centre of the steering wheel; if the airbag goes off it will hit your arm and be less effective saving you. Now I appreciate the sentiment and there is a need to increase safety on the road but the increase in monitoring our activities though devices like speed cameras, and fining us for misdemeanours does seem to be disproportionally on the increase...
What I am building up to is that driving is getting to a point where it’s a chore not a pleasure. We seem to be in a downward spiral of bad behaviour, lack of respect and an increase in the technology to control us “being free willed humans.” What we need is a way to control our speed, reducing time spent travelling, improve safety, and a solution to the way we use vehicles to assert our superiority over others. There is a solution; "Driverless Vehicles".
Can you imagine the day when you step out your front door, climb into your car, or maybe one you have summoned via the "interweb." You tell it you need to get to London, the car asked you how much you are prepared to contribute to the Carbon tax, that determines’ how fast will arrive at your destination. The vehicle sets off, manoeuvres out of suburbia, joins the traffic train and is moving at the greatest pace for the conditions. Speed limits will be a thing of the past as computer control can compensate for road conditions, potential obstacles and fuel efficiency.
Once on the highway you will be travelling at say 130+ MPH, but that could increase depending on your carbon payment, you will be part of a train increasing aerodynamic efficiently and weave smoothly in and out of the slower freight and service vehicles. >You will relax whilst catching up on the latest blog entries, reading your email, or maybe trying to sleep whilst your passengers talk about the days when they used to be able to drive for themselves, the fights they had because someone cut them up and the freedom they thought they had...
These systems are already being developed; Jeremy Clarkson was driven round the Top Gear track recently by a BMW without touching the controls (try searching Google for "Driverless BMW Top Gear"), mind you I do recall a slightly more embarrassing example of a Mercedes that was demonstrating its driverless control - imagine the seen, driving into a foggy patch on a road and unbeknown to you there is a stationary car within the fog, another Mercedes as it was. Well the idea was the driverless car would spot this via various clever sensors and swerve & brake to avoid it. Well unfortunately it didn't and ran straight into the rear. Doh!
As you can see I have described just a few of the technologies that could be combined to make this new “transport system” work. >We already have driverless trains, there is talk of busses doing it, aeroplanes spend most of their flight in auto-pilot, so why not cars?
Despite it being some what in the distant future I do find the whole idea really exciting. Not having the stress of driving would be a pleasure, knowing you arrival time within a few minutes, having time to do other things than concentrate on driving, being able to take a phone call and not worry about being caught or just having a kip, how lovely would that be? Taking away the human element of driving, incompetence, inability, tiredness, bloody-mindedness, etc. will only improve safety.
But what about those who still enjoy driving; I'm sure we shall still see events like F1 and Touring car take place, Moto GP's etc. but maybe with different fuels, track days or skid pad events, not unlike horse jumping today, who rides a horse to work nowadays?
Maybe we will be monitored, but once parameters are set the vehicle does the rest, all under the “sensible controls” allowed by the highways agency or whoever’s in control by then?
It may be a long way off but the fundamental technology is there, all we need to do is apply it.
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