[ExI] self driving cars

[Kelly Anderson]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 9:49 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Answer to the problem: make the caravanning feature work only on interstate
> highways, where there are no cliffs.  Make it such that if the lead car
> drifts over the line, the trailing cars assume the yahoo has dozed, and
> immediately brakes all trailing cars to a stop.

If the second car could reliably determine that the lane was exited,
then why would you need a pilot car at all? Just go to full
autonomous.

> This brings up an interesting new problem.  We are not accustomed to having
> cars brake to a full stop on the freeway, but they would need to do exactly
> that if there is no response from a meat-based control system, which might
> not be immediately available, because that particular control system is in
> back sleeping, stoned, copulating, or otherwise unresponsive.

If the meat-based system is in control of the car, I would hope they
would not be simultaneously copulating. One or the other please!

> So, we now must demand something new of drivers: the ability to deal with
> cars coming to a halt on the freeway.  Proposal: make it so that the
> caravanning can only be done in the far left lane, and only on freeways that
> have barriers.  Then make it such that cars can only use that lane if
> equipped with automatic braking systems, which can deal with cars
> unexpectedly stopping in the left lane.

These systems are already in place. You would just need to install
them in more cars.

> On more and more freeways in California, we have carpool lanes and toll
> lanes, which are usually over on the far left.  So if we are going to use
> that freeway real estate for social engineering, we can use it for
> robo-driven cars.  If they are in close formation, all cars would use less
> fuel.  We could have it such that if the lead car in a caravan hits the
> brakes, it simultaneously applies the same deceleration to all cars in that
> train.  That in itself would be cool to watch: a string of 20 cars going at
> freeway speed spaced 2 meters apart, then braking all the way to a stop as
> the spacing stays right at 2 meters all the way down.

It would be an interesting sight to see, once. Then it would settle
into "normal" very fast.

-Kelly