There’s a cracking letter in The Instances nowadays from Andy Cole in Cleethorpes.
Mr Cole was responding to a claim by Professor John Miles of the University of Cambridge that driverless automobiles will decrease traffic congestion.
That’s surely the accepted wisdom – driverless cars will be safer and greater in a position to drive and park efficiently in all road and motorway conditions. Their on-board sensors and satellite connections will steer them clear of trouble and enable them to keep away from jams by identifying, in real time, the ideal route from A to B.
I for one certainly accepted that wisdom. But Mr Cole has offered me severe pause for believed.
He says the argument that driverless vehicles will ease congestion is inherently flawed. The extremely qualities that are supposed to make automobiles safer, he suggests, will end up with them clogging the roads and worsening targeted traffic congestion.
Mr Cole writes: “These automobiles are programmed to cease in the event of danger… When men and women trust in the technologies, pedestrians, cyclists and drivers of ordinary automobiles will take benefit, hence subverting the rules of the road.”
In other words, we’ll get to the stage where we’ll happily pull out in front of a driverless auto at a junction or a roundabout, or step off the pavement in front of one particular, since we trust it to recognise us as a hazard and automatically apply the brakes.
And, of course, as soon as a single car stops (or even just slows by a touch in quick-moving traffic), the following autos will inevitably be impacted – top to queues and disruption.
As a result the satisfied vision of driverless vehicles smoothly progressing to their different destinations is becoming challenged by an alternative scenario, where passengers in those automobiles continuously scramble to wrest back control so they can race off in pursuit of the individual who just deliberately cut them up.
What do you reckon? Will driverless automobiles take us down the path to motoring nirvana, or are we on the road to ruin?
I’d use the ‘jam today, jam tomorrow’ line you have most likely been expecting, but The Times sub beat me to it…
Let us know your thoughts on the likely (ahem) effect of driverless automobiles in the box below…
Driverless cars – be careful what you wish for!
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