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The Case for Automated Driving

By Rain Noe - February 19, 2013

in Cars

Sartre's maxim that "Hell is other people" never becomes more obvious than when you drive through Manhattan. The cabdrivers are more interested in the conversations they're having on their Bluetooth headphones than on driving. Other drivers are texting when the light turns green. Delivery truck drivers stop to say theoretically flattering things to women who have the audacity to walk past wearing a skirt. Drivers with Jersey plates do this absurd thing where when stopped, they leave at least a car-length-and-a-half between them and the car in front of them, which results in box-blocking behind them. Then there are the spraypainted-white bicycles everywhere, left as memorials that a cyclist was killed by a car at that particular spot.

Something I have wanted for years is for this city, or hell any city, to incorporate automated driving. I know the technology exists. Ten years ago they talked about it for highways and they called the concept "platooning." Here's how it would work in the city:

You don't touch the wheel, or the gas, brakes and horn, at all. You don't control the car. Because you're an idiot. And your time would be better spent letting your Facebook friends know what you ate for lunch. Also, computers are smart. So the city is covered in sensors and transmitters, as is your car, and the cars of all the idiots around you. All of the cars know where all of the pedestrians, animals, other vehicles, and cyclists are at all times.

So the car drives itself. There's not as much sudden stopping-and-starting, because the computer knows how to flow and route a bunch of random bits around smoothly, providing something like flow. Boxes never get blocked. Pedestrians and cyclists never get hit. If the cyclist is in the left lane and needs to make a right turn, he hits a transmitter on his bike, and the cars around him make way because guess what, cyclists have the right of way since they're not filling the air with carbon monoxide and because they rarely kill motorists or pedestrians. And furthermore, if you're in a car at a red light with no crossing traffic or people, then there is no red light, your car moves because it can. So you don't sit there for 30 seconds filling the air with more unnecessary carbon monoxide.

The technology exists. But yes, I know, there will be no uptake in New York City anytime in the near future, because we are not smart enough to work out the kinks and convince idiots that this is the way to go.

Sigh.In the meantime, Volvo is working on platooning, or as they call it, "Wireless road trains." It's not meant for cities, but for highway jaunts. And they've got a novel take on it: Cars in this road train would not be driven solely by a computer, but would instead be programmed to follow a professional—a long-haul truck driver. Check it out:

The name of Volvo's system? SARTRE. They might claim it's an acronym for SAfe Road TRains for the Environment, but we know the real reason they picked it.

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HML

11 years ago

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Tom Mc, just to pick a year, in 2010, there were an estimated 5,419,000 crashes, killing 32,885 people.

And the vast majority of those people, like you, are convinced that it's always the other driver who's at fault and that THEY are the "above average" drivers on the road.

In short, no, we are not letting you opt out of the system.

Just out of curiosity, just how many other cities in the world have you driven in? Because "many other places in the world" are much, much worse. Try Rome or Beijing at rush hour sometime.
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Ken K

11 years ago

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The author's description of driving in Manhattan is going for the wildly exaggerated hyperbolic apocalyptic effect, which I admire and am a big fan of. But readers who live far from Manhattan should know that almost nothing he says about traffic in Manhattan (where I live and work) is actually true. Except for the bit about New Jersey drivers, who are far stupider and more dangerous than he says.
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Tom Mc

11 years ago

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Sounds good to me so long as I have the option of buying a car that is fully controlled by me, and you have no way of forcing me into this system that further supports idiocracy.

Can't we just train drivers to you know, actually drive cars? Make it hard to get a license? Works many other places in the world besides Urban America.
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Scott

11 years ago

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My enthusiasm for automated driving grows daily; the idea that I can get in a vehicle parked for me in a driveway in the morning, commute to work or the train station, and get out and on to my day without the rigors of dealing with the traffic around me (barring paying a live chauffer) is something I long for.

However, what about the areas that are not cities, and are not highway? I live in a rural area, it takes 20 minutes of driving to hit the highway that takes me to work, and most of those streets are small winding New England countryside affairs.

So how does the transition happen? I imagine, like an aircraft, it being easy to 'take off' into the highway; the computer can gradually take control as I enter the on-ramp. However what about when I want to 'land' from the highway down into the non-interfaced area? Does the car sound an alarm and tell me to get my feet and hands back on the controls? What if I'm asleep?

I'm sure at some point my car will use a form of kinect-like array to check my posture, my eye-contact, probably will be able to tell if I'm sick or need to use the restroom; it could certainly know if I'm ready to drive. But the car's going 80mph on I-95, I get to my exit, I'm asleep and the car can't wake me... does it pull over and wait for me to wake up?

My initial response is that the car would attempt to wake you and get you to acknowledge control transfer, and barring that it could continue to a holding lot where it would park and wait for you to come-to; but those could well be full-up in the middle of rush-hour on the homeward commute and that could put me in a situation where my car runs out of battery or takes me miles away from my destination.

Because let's face it; people will sleep. And so until the vehicle can autonomously park itself somewhere out of the way of traffic but not too far from your route, and get you to wake up, it will be a somewhat frequent issue.

Would make a cool plot device though; a commuter wakes up in her car, in a parking lot far from where she has been. Where is she? Who is she? What is the meaning of the note in the glovebox? And why does the car keep calling her Micheal?
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powers

11 years ago

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ugh. I think I'm getting sick.
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