Driverless cars

buffalo

Picture yourself cycling down a city street in the year 2035. You’re late for a meeting, but the road you must cross ahead has recently been designated an “Autonomous Vehicle-only” route, where platoons of driverless cars whizz past, mere centimetres apart. You can’t ride across it, as cyclists and pedestrians have been banned for fear they would slow the driverless traffic. You must find a way around.

The clock is ticking. Do you attempt to climb the barrier and make a dash through the traffic? As you wait, you see a group of kids on a side street which is open to all vehicles. They are darting between driverless pods and forcing them to a stop. It’s a popular game.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jun/14/street-wars-2035-cyclists-driverless-cars-autonomous-vehicles

I'm usually in the school of thought that driverless cars will save humans from ourselves, and that cyclists will be better treated. Not so sure anymore...

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/nissan-driverless-car-guilty-of-close-pass-overtake-of-uk-cyclist/020846

I have wondered what our city centres will look like with self-driving cars. Would it be possible for a self-driving car to make any progress down say, O'Connell St, once people know they can safely walk out in front of traffic and it will stop. Will we either a) ban cars from city centre or b) rigorously enforce a jay-walking ban?


It's Friday, so go wild...

srsly78

Just put your bike into autonomous mode and let it join the stream

07Lapierre

I suspect the "Automated" sections of road would be Motorways. Once the motorway ends, then the driver would have to take over and drive "Normally" or the vehicle will drive at 30kph Max.

Or ....maybe by 2035 we'll all be riding hover bikes!

Annie get your Run

07Lapierre wrote: »

I suspect the "Automated" sections of road would be Motorways. Once the motorway ends, then the driver would have to take over and drive "Normally" or the vehicle will drive at 30kph Max.

Or ....maybe by 2035 we'll all be riding hover bikes!

Looks like that's the best solution!! I'd agree with buffalo here. I had thought that driverless vehicles would improve safety but when you consider the amount of information taken in and processed by the human eye & brain (or not as the case may be) when dealing with everything on the road, you can see why technology has a problem with the myriad of scenarios created by pedestrians and cyclists who by their very nature are much more fluid than motor vehicles. Segregated infrastructure will become more important but I really hope we don't see the focus on the best services for the cars and second class for everyone else. Having said that it's more likely that roads and laws will continue to change to benefit drivers and not pedestrians or cyclists.

You'd have to believe too that pedestrians will continue to walk out in front of traffic and even more so if they know the risk of being knocked down is greatly reduced.

The best solutions might include making city centres motor vehicle free but that's highly unlikely to ever happen?

Daroxtar

Driverless cars will be obsolete in no time. We'll be teleporting.

Snickers Man

07Lapierre wrote: »

Or ....maybe by 2035 we'll all be riding hover bikes!

Hover bikes my ass. Tell it like it is: just call 'em jet packs :D

Must have!!!!

CramCycle

Pedestrianise the city center bar for public transport and bicycles. Driverless cars can stop outside cities and shuttle in on PT. As we get closer to this future, there really is less and less need for a private motor vehicle on inner city streets, with the exception of PT and emergency vehicles.

jon1981

Daroxtar wrote: »

Driverless cars will be obsolete in no time. We'll be teleporting.

That's the fiction, the reality is we will all be working and socialising from our living room while wearing a Haptic suit and VR headset while being drip fed from an IV.

https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-Ernest-Cline/dp/0307887448

seamus

CramCycle wrote: »

Pedestrianise the city center bar for public transport and bicycles. Driverless cars can stop outside cities and shuttle in on PT. As we get closer to this future, there really is less and less need for a private motor vehicle on inner city streets, with the exception of PT and emergency vehicles.

This is more likely to be the outcome of autonomous vehicles. People don't realise that very few people will own their vehicle. Instead you'll hail one on your phone just like a taxi and when you get to your location it'll drive away to a depot.

The idea of using vehicles for door-to-door travel will largely die out, and with it so too the idea that vehicles need to be able to get down every street and parking needs to be available everywhere. Instead in dense urban areas you'll have designated pick-up/drop-off points like taxi ranks, and people will walk/cycle shorter distances to their location.

dexter_morgan

Driverless cars are nothing new! Been around since the late 1800s.

HivemindXX

I don't really see this idea of a constant stream of cars with no gap to get across will be any different from a lot of roads at the moment. Presumably there would still be traffic lights. And perhaps the robot cars won't be stopping with two wheels up on the footpath while they run to the ATM or flying down the left turn only lane only to swerve back in to the straight ahead lane at the junction.

The other issue about people deliberately messing with the robot cars causing them to stop might be something. I've read this can happen with the existing tests although with other cars rather than children being the messers. If that does become a big issue I'm not sure how you would solve it. Laws and fines are all well and good but how do you enforce them. Licence plates for pedestrians?

There are certainly big benefits as well as potential drawbacks. We won't know how things will actually work until there is a lot more adoption of the technology. Luckily we're not going to switch overnight.

iwillhtfu

Volvo are making great strides in R&D anyway :eek:

seamus

HivemindXX wrote: »

The other issue about people deliberately messing with the robot cars causing them to stop might be something.

I'm not sure. At the end of the day they'll still be 1.5 ton metal boxes flying down the road, parents aren't going to stop teaching their kids not to walk out in front of traffic.

There'll always be a small element of braindead thugs, the kind who throw bricks off bridges onto motorways. But they're rare enough anyway.

If it does become a "thing", it won't be long before someone dies doing it and then it'll stop happening again.

Chips Lovell

Milled out of it.

ED E

Its not impossible that cars may end up using a passive reflector or an active transmitter to communicate their own position better to each other. One would wonder if cyclists could be mandated to do the same to improve detection by AVs.

username2013

seamus wrote: »

This is more likely to be the outcome of autonomous vehicles. People don't realise that very few people will own their vehicle. Instead you'll hail one on your phone just like a taxi and when you get to your location it'll drive away to a depot.

The idea of using vehicles for door-to-door travel will largely die out, and with it so too the idea that vehicles need to be able to get down every street and parking needs to be available everywhere. Instead in dense urban areas you'll have designated pick-up/drop-off points like taxi ranks, and people will walk/cycle shorter distances to their location.

I'm not so sure about vehicles for door to door traveling will die out. We already have designated pick up/drop off points in major urban areas (taxis, buses, trams etc), but people still like cars for the convenience of been able to jump into it right outside your house. That's not going to change. Also with driverless cars you can essentially turn your car into an office during your commute into your actual office and also have the option to go for a few drinks after work, jump into car, fall asleep and wake up at home! This could lead to an increase in people wanting to own a driverless car thus making traffic even worse.

Beasty

Currently in San Francisco and one of the presenters (an expert in evolving technology) at the conference I'm attending suggested the way this is going ultimately all cars will be driverless and you will be unable to get insurance to drive on public roads

That may well result in people giving up their cars and relying on mass transport options which could be a good thing for cyclists

Whether this happens in my lifetime though does remain to be seen.....