….. no, lets change the Highway Code so that they can drive as badly as human drivers!

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/02/10/road-revolution-cards-highway-code-overtaken-driverless-vehicles

Can’t wait, means I can get pissed and not have to walk home!

Government ministers are preparing to rip up the rulebook governing conduct on Britain’s roads in expectation of a driverless transport revolution which may be just around the corner according to reports in The Telegraph.

Just around the corner? What, next week?

This could see recommended passing distances between cyclists and pedestrians recalibrated in an effort to head off future traffic jams with automated vehicles rigidly tailing cyclists for miles until the requisite space opens up for them to overtake within existing rules.

It was the above that concerned me.
Let’s make the passing distances smaller to match the bad drivers already out there on the roads!

I think I would prefer a smaller distance that was enforced rather than the current state of affairs.

It’s an interesting conundrum. The rules are set out as I see it because people will cut the margins finer – eg treat a bike as a car for passing – almost no one does that but in general you don’t need that much room to be overtaken when you’re on a bike so a driverless car passing closer than a full car’s width would be ok by me.

So will it be one rule for driverless which will be much more accurate and consistent (hopefully!) and a different, larger margin one for human drivers?

They’re still not going to work in the real world.

Been waiting for a gap in the traffic to pull out of a junction? See a driverless car approaching and pull out anyway, knowing it will brake automatically. Cyclists will take prime anyway or ride three abreast in front of them, pedestrians will just step out rather than look for a proper crossing. Recipe for instant gridlock behind them.

Aren’t those all things that people could do now but don’t because, well, most people aren’t ****s and as such probably actually won’t…?

Just making progress though, innit? 🙂

I would like to see all road vehicles swarm blue-toothed as soon as possible.
Audible warnings of hard braking or stationery vehicles on motorways and guidance on moment by moment average speeds would be really useful. Imagine being told that cars 1/4 mile ahead are triggering their abs or airbag deployment.
The data could also be used to inform the software being developed for driverless cars at a later date

Can’t wait

as above,

being overtaken by a driverless car at less than 1metre (or whatever), might not be ideal. But as a concept, it’s much more appealing than being overtaken even closer, by a car exceeding the speed limit, by a driver who’s too busy checking their twitter feed to look at the road more than occasionally.