NHTSA proposes requiring vehicle to vehicle comm systems

[KD5NRH]

How long before it becomes popular to toss stuff in front of auto brake cars to cause traffic jams?

[MechAg94]

I seems to me that networking cars isn't needed for the reasons given.  The only way I see it needed is if you want a big city's traffic management system to basically run all the cars and regulate speed and such.  Otherwise, you can do the same thing without networking. 

I don't see how they would establish any such system anytime soon.  It would be decades before enough cars had this stuff to make it work.  And you would have to force poor people and others to give up their older cars and trucks. 

[onions!]

I remember an article in Car & Driver from late eighties that discussed a desire by law enforcement to be able to shut off any vehicle they were in pursuit of.The article specifically mentioned a desire for a portable EMP device.I think they mentioned some hurdles towards that end.

If all cars are on a network then the police could warn you directly while in pursuit and then shut the car off at their convenience.

Probably be another Cash for Clunkers after the tech is in enough cars.

[RoadKingLarry]

It's already quite easy to know where a vehicle is at all times.

Self-driving cars (which are inevitable in our future, anyway) can also lead to an immense increase in personal freedom.

If the car drives itself and doesn't even have a steering wheel (and driverless cars are unlikely to have one), there's no point in driver's licensing, or rolling DUI checkpoints, or a whole variety of other things related to the above.

GPS isn't 100% reliable and likely never will be. I'm not going to trust my safety to a system that is subject to errors due to weather, solar flares and even malicious hackers. I can see some potential benefits but unless I can over ride and take full control I ain't interested.

[RoadKingLarry]

I remember an article in Car & Driver from late eighties that discussed a desire by law enforcement to be able to shut off any vehicle they were in pursuit of.The article specifically mentioned a desire for a portable EMP device.I think they mentioned some hurdles towards that end.

If all cars are on a network then the police could warn you directly while in pursuit and then shut the car off at their convenience.

Probably be another Cash for Clunkers after the tech is in enough cars.

If your car can be shut off by the police then somebody can hack it. I'd prefer not to give criminals the ability to shut off my vehicle when I'm traveling a remote, desolate stretch of road at 0200.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Welcome to my parlor at 2 am.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Tallpine]

GPS isn't 100% reliable and likely never will be. I'm not going to trust my safety to a system that is subject to errors due to weather, solar flares and even malicious hackers. I can see some potential benefits but unless I can over ride and take full control I ain't interested.

If you let your GPS guide you in our neighborhood, it will route you up some 100 year old wagon track that isn't a public road anymore.   

I wonder if it will stop the car so you can get out and open the stretch gate, and then pull the car through the gate and wait for you to close the gate and get back in ....   

[MicroBalrog]

GPS isn't 100% reliable and likely never will be.

Nothing is, or ever will be.

But it's far easier for the government to monitor the movements of your vehicle (at least for the majority of population that doesn't live off the grid) at the current technology levels, using a combination of traffic cameras, automated plate readers, GPS, cellphone tracking,etc. than is commonly accepted.

[Tallpine]

Nothing is, or ever will be.

But it's far easier for the government to monitor the movements of your vehicle (at least for the majority of population that doesn't live off the grid) at the current technology levels, using a combination of traffic cameras, automated plate readers, GPS, cellphone tracking,etc. than is commonly accepted.

I think that there's a pretty fair number of people living in rural/small town USA, the outback of Australia, most of Africa, central Asia, and even your own desert neighborhoods where GPS would be worthless for actually guiding a vehicle (as opposed to using it as a navigation aid).

I don't think GPS will tell you that the road washed out last night, or drifted over with sand, or has a big rock in the middle that just tumbled off the cliff.

[MechAg94]

The freeway bridges over the Houston Ship Channel have been hit by ships before.  I was thinking there was at least once where a hole was created and one or more cars fell through.  I wonder if auto driving systems would spot that?  I am sure they could be set up to watch the road surface, but not soon enough to stop.  Networking might allow other cars behind that one to stop though. 

You would need an auto-drive system to be looking at the road somehow as it would need to sense if the road was wet or icy or covered in debris or other stuff. 

[Tallpine]

You wanna trust your GPS auto-drive here:



 

 

[KD5NRH]

I think that there's a pretty fair number of people living in rural/small town USA, the outback of Australia, most of Africa, central Asia, and even your own desert neighborhoods where GPS would be worthless for actually guiding a vehicle (as opposed to using it as a navigation aid).

In the tiny hamlet of Dallas, GPS often shows me on a parallel road 75+ yards away.  If it can't reliably distinguish between the interstate and the service road, what's going to happen when somebody's autodrive stops for the service road's red light while it's actually in a 65 zone in the middle of I-635?

[Tallpine]

In the tiny hamlet of Dallas, GPS often shows me on a parallel road 75+ yards away.  If it can't reliably distinguish between the interstate and the service road, what's going to happen when somebody's autodrive stops for the service road's red light while it's actually in a 65 zone in the middle of I-635?

Or the other way around 

[MicroBalrog]

So ...  

It's interesting how people who live in cities think the rest of the world doesn't exist and/or doesn't matter.

So their presence is not a meaningful factor in terms of this discussion.

81% of the US population lives in cities, and of the other 19%, the majority do not live in the far off boonies like the individuals you described.

[Tallpine]

So their presence is not a meaningful factor in terms of this discussion.

81% of the US population lives in cities, and of the other 19%, the majority do not live in the far off boonies like the individuals you described.

A lot of those "cities" are fairly small.  I don't think your robo-car is going to work very well in Mayberry, or even Billlings (pop ~100K).

Let's see, I'm going to drive to the pet store, and then to the post office, and then to Walmart, and then to the feed store, and then to Walmart, and then to the gas station ...

So if all new cars/suvs/pickups have no steering wheels, just how do you expect that 20% to get around    Or maybe you were planning on rounding them all up .....   

[KD5NRH]

I'm still not seeing the liability issue addressed; who's on the hook when a robocar wrecks anyway?

[RevDisk]

I'm still not seeing the liability issue addressed; who's on the hook when a robocar wrecks anyway?

Until this question is answered, there will be no autonomous vehicles outside of PR stunts or experimental vehicles.

[KD5NRH]

Until this question is answered, there will be no autonomous vehicles outside of PR stunts or experimental vehicles.

And once it is answered, it will most likely guarantee that they don't exist for a long time.

Look at the number of serious failures vehicles have already; you think any manufacturer wants to add to their risk by being at fault in every wreck their cars get into?  Every nav app comes with a "don't use this as your only means of navigation" warning, so it's a pretty safe bet no GIS company wants to be on the hook for a fatal wreck every time they misplace a road or oversimplify a curve. 

[brimic]

If you let your GPS guide you in our neighborhood, it will route you up some 100 year old wagon track that isn't a public road anymore

When I was meeting the bunch in Illinois for an APS get together a few years ago, the GPS kept telling me to turn onto tractor paths between corn fields. I only found everyone because the berms for the shooting range were visible miles away.

[MicroBalrog]

A lot of those "cities" are fairly small.  I don't think your robo-car is going to work very well in Mayberry, or even Billlings (pop ~100K).

Let's see, I'm going to drive to the pet store, and then to the post office, and then to Walmart, and then to the feed store, and then to Walmart, and then to the gas station ...

So if all new cars/suvs/pickups have no steering wheels, just how do you expect that 20% to get around    Or maybe you were planning on rounding them all up .....   

What I suggest is that first 1% of all cars will have no steering wheels, then 10%, then eventually 80 and 90 and 99%, as the technology improves, and more people move to the cities.

[RoadKingLarry]

Problem with that thought is that our population is not moving to the cities in great numbers and in fact the opposite is happening.

[Tallpine]

Problem with that thought is that our population is not moving to the cities in great numbers and in fact the opposite is happening.

The other problem is that people will just start buying one ton or bigger trucks that still have steering wheels   

Why are SUVs so popular?  Because the full size RWD family stations wagons are no more 

[KD5NRH]

Problem with that thought is that our population is not moving to the cities in great numbers and in fact the opposite is happening.

This, and with a robocar to make a long morning commute into a nap or extra work time, even more people would move beyond the suburbs.  For example, as it is, Granbury has a lot of people making a ~35-40 mile commute to Fort Worth, and even some driving an hour or more into Dallas.  When I lived in Red Oak, about 2/3 of the population there were commuters driving 30-40 minutes into downtown Dallas.  If they could lean the seat back and zone out to some tunes, it would just make the idea of living away from the city even more attractive.

The other problem is that people will just start buying one ton or bigger trucks that still have steering wheels   

Why are SUVs so popular?  Because the full size RWD family stations wagons are no more 

That's the unfortunate truth of unintended consequences when government meddles in things.  I'd love to have an updated version of the 1995 Legacy wagon I had; great handling when the roads got bad, and enough room for plywood.

[Tallpine]

Back in 1988 when we were living in Colo Spgs for a while, IIRC I had a 13 mile each way commute (all in town) and at some times of the day it took 45+ minutes 

Where we are now in the wilds it is about an hour and 15 minutes to Billings to go 60 miles.

[tokugawa]

Hey, autonomous cars- what a great idea- now the jihadi's can have a VBIED with no need for suicide driver.