Driverless cars, the future, I can remember Tomorrow's World showing the image of driverless cars, and now the travel pods are coming to MK, supposedly, lets not hold our breath just yet, but the reality is companies such as Google are investing huge amounts of money into this technological revolution to be the first on the market which in turn will greatly increase their share value.
How will the AV improve things for the driving instructor though, will we need driving licences or a machine licence? If the advent of these vehicles is expected to be all encompassing making our roads a safe and secure environment, and eliminate the potential for the type of accident reported recently where a 21 year old woman kills a pedestrian borne out of impatience, then why have we until 2030 to have a chip and pin driving licence across all EU states as surely they won't be needed? What will happen to speed cameras, fines for poor driving behaviour and bans for joy riding? I guess it still leaves the door open for vehicle theft unless you have an inbuilt retina scan, log in and drive, which currently isn't in the mix.
The goal is to have a driverless vehicle on the road by 2020, of course America is leading the way, with some states now having made provision for AV's, lets hope the sat nav is good after all we have had a few teething problems with those over the years.
From a driver point of view is it an attractive proposition, letting the computer do the work, we have slowly become used to an amount of computer generated control over the years, with satellite navigation systems, parking sensors, low brake pad warnings, cruise control and ESP to name a few, so it had to be the natural progression for the car to do the work. However the next move from cars will of course be trucks, do you fancy 44 tonne or 88 tonne of truck driving towards you with a Johnny Five lookalike behind the wheel, ready to off load at it's destination, or am I taking this too far in the future.
It would definitely eliminate accidents such as a recent Essex fatal collision where two elderly people were killed on a crossing by a double decker bus travelling too fast in a 30 limit, to stop. Can it really eliminate all fatalities though, it would be difficult for that to be a reality, if a cyclist wobbles in your direction on a bend on a country road, or appears from the woods to your left, even if uber technology picked it up that doesn't stop the person in charge of the cycle having a collision.
You are in a traffic queue, the last vehicle and coming along behind is a regular car and the driver is texting you can see them approaching and your vehicle screams impact alert, impact alert, would you have a total heart failure prior to collision, is that a possibility.
The question for driver trainers is will someone have to be trained to drive the vehicle, that seems to be a suggestion that manufacturers have avoided as the vehicle has to be seen to be an easy evolution not one that requires a rocket scientist and a thousand page manual to run through a controls familiarisation.
For those of you, who like me, that actually enjoy driving will that pleasure be a distant memory, or is the advent of driverless vehicles just an experiment, an expensive one at that, as just because you can do something does it mean you should.
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