What happens when the truck in front has a blow out and leaves the motorway. Are the rest going to follow.
I like the idea of autonomous driving but surely each vehicle will need to have a driver on board just in case. Driverless is the wrong path IMO. They should just try and iron out the major failings of the driver. IE, travelling too fast and too close. Take the monotony out of the 200 mile trunks where you’re sat on the limiter for hours on end.
I’d still want ultimate control though.
albion1938:
Also in the Mail last week, report of a Google driverless SUV already being tried in California that collided with a bus, seems it changed lanes assuming the bus would give way to it! Oh, hang on though, not much different to some cars with drivers in!
Bernard
"One of Google’s self-driving cars crashed into a bus in California last month. There were no injuries.
It is not the first time one of Google’s famed self-driving cars has been involved in a crash, but it may be the first time it has caused one.
Google is to meet with California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to discuss the incident, and determine where the blame lies.
On 14 February the car, travelling at 2mph (3km/h), pulled out in front of a public bus going 15mph (24km/h).
The human in the Google vehicle reported that he assumed the bus would slow down to let the car out, and so he did not override the car’s self-driving computer.
The crash happened in Mountain View, near Google’s headquarters.
In a statement, Google said: "We clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn’t moved, there wouldn’t have been a collision.
“That said, our test driver believed the bus was going to slow or stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and that there would be sufficient space to do that.”
The company’s self-driving cars have clocked up well over a million miles across various states in the US, and until now have only reported minor “fender benders” - the American slang for a small collision.
In all of those cases, other road users were to blame.
Google releases a monthly report detailing the testing of its self-driving technology.
Ahead of the February report’s publication, due Tuesday, a traffic incident filing was made public by the DMV.
A setback
“The Google AV [autonomous vehicle] test driver saw the bus approaching in the left side mirror but believed the bus would stop or slow to allow the Google AV to continue,” the report read.
"Approximately three seconds later, as the Google AV was re-entering the centre of the lane it made contact with the side of the bus.
“The Google AV was operating in autonomous mode and travelling at less than two mph, and the bus was travelling at about 15mph at the time of contact.”
The car’s movements were made more complex, the report said, by the presence of sandbags on the road.
Google said it had now refined its self-driving algorithm.
“From now on, our cars will more deeply understand that buses (and other large vehicles) are less likely to yield to us than other types of vehicles, and we hope to handle situations like this more gracefully in the future.”
If the DMV considers the Google car to be at fault for the collision, it could be seen as a setback for the company’s ambitious autonomous vehicle plans.
The bus crash came just four days after a legal breakthrough for the self-driving project - the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Google it would likely give the self-driving computer the same legal treatment as a human driver.
That decision would pave the way for self-driving cars without any typical controls, such as a steering wheel or pedals."
bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35 … ow_twitter
Some interesting statements in there. Particularly the bit about sandbags, makes me wonder how they’d cope with the obstacle course that is our motorway network. If the human driver has to take over when the road situation gets too complex, what’s the point of the self driving mode?
I would not be surprised if there is some drivers already enquiring, can I be the lead driver of 10 trucks for £7.50 per hour!!
Evil8Beezle:
Will you lot stop trying to throw spanners into the works!
I’m sure the boffins have thought of all of this and it’s going to work seamlessly!
But when the trial starts, we better get the popcorn order in early, as I think we’re going to need a lot, maybe 10 trucks worth!
The trial will go well, because it’ll be done under controlled conditions. Likely at 3 am with the road closed to all other traffic.
Terry T:
What happens when the truck in front has a blow out and leaves the motorway. Are the rest going to follow.I like the idea of autonomous driving but surely each vehicle will need to have a driver on board just in case. Driverless is the wrong path IMO. They should just try and iron out the major failings of the driver. IE, travelling too fast and too close. Take the monotony out of the 200 mile trunks where you’re sat on the limiter for hours on end.
I’d still want ultimate control though.
Each truck behind the lead truck will have a driver “to take control in an emergency”, but given he will have zero visibility, zero braking space, and probably rolling a ■■■ at the time I have my doubts he will be able to suddenly leap into action. It’ll never work on our roads. And imagine the hold ups you’d have overtaking a 10 strong convoy of Tesco wagons. Not to mention blocking slip roads entering and exiting motorways.
The only place this can work is on interstate type roads.
Seems it’s not just us truck drivers who could be facing redundancy soon, although it’s only a matter of time before the unions starts making song and dance about this one.
damoq:
Seems it’s not just us truck drivers who could be facing redundancy soon, although it’s only a matter of time before the unions starts making song and dance about this one.
Stadler Bussnang AG / Ansaldo STS Consortium
So investing in good old Scottish/British engineering then, again, as ever socialists doing the native working man a disservice by buying foreign.
Hello im HAL 9000 i will be your driver today…!!!
Tris:
Likely at 3 am with the road closed to all other traffic.
Apparently the first trial will be on the M6 north of Preston according to the BBC, although it then narrows it down to ■■■■■■■ as apparently there’s not as much traffic or junctions. 3am there’s defo not as much (if any) traffic, but during the day there only real options are between say Tebay and Penrith as the other bits are still quite busy and often have traffic backing up onto the motorway.
As I’ve said elsewhere, we’ve had self-flying planes for at least 20 years capable of every part of the flight from runway to runway at least, using the most highly controlled space in the world with computer systems massively more powerful than anything they can put into a truck. However, has anyone ever heard of anyone even hinting that they’d actually allow a plane to take off and land by itself never mind without a pilot? Nope…me neither. If they can’t do that, how on earth can they realistically expect properly self-driving trucks to be more than a tax writeoff for the R&D dept.
History is littered with grand ideas for automated this and that, but from where I’m standing it’s taken 40 years to get an automated lawn mower that can in theory cut the grass without mowing down the local cats or destroying your flowerbeds, so not too sure even the 20 year olds will have to worry too much.
For those who think the world will be automated, look up old episodes of BBC Tomorrow’s World and see how many came to production.
Edit: Actually this could seriously mess with tachos as if you’re observing the road ready to take over, is that “driving mode” or “other work” since you’re technically not actually driving even if the wheels are turning? Could you even class it as POA since you’re technically double manning, albeit with the computer as primary driver?
does anyone know how close they are going to follow each other ? 2 second gap 1 second gap, just a few inches?
and if it is really close, how will they balance the braking, if one is running at 44t and another at 34t, or one trucks brakes are not quite as good as all the others?
and what happens if the driver wants to stop at a service station for his 45 … what is he going to do with his 600 foot long truck. … LOL … will he press a button and they all disperse into different parking spots, then when he restarts will they all automatically join up into a long train … its going to be impressive to watch.
damoq:
Seems it’s not just us truck drivers who could be facing redundancy soon, although it’s only a matter of time before the unions starts making song and dance about this one.
My first thought when I read about an automatic Subway was: will the robot still put lettuce on my sandwich even though I didn’t ask for it?
Juddian:
Its never going to happen in Britain in any of our lifetimes, by the time the technology is good enough (25 years?) the population will be approaching 100 million standing room only and the civil war, that’s possibly coming to western europe, may well have kicked off and that will take us back decades.Not as any of this matters, the looming economic disaster (that will make 2008 look easy) will put this on the back burner for another generation and probably far longer when the money to burn stops.
Exactly.
Assuming that this tech relies heavily on the truck reading the lines on the road, what happens when the government remove the lines from the road? They are funding this trial but at the same time they are looking at doing something which will effectively disable the trials.
I am sure our elected representatives have already solved this though with their collective expertise on such matters
Short memory you all seem to have,dare I mention Mr.Denby and the ructions there was over his extra trailer.I will assume this is a venture by
Mercedes Benz who have mooted driverless vehicles for several years…question…if it’s such a damned good idea why don’t they test it fully in
Germany for about 25 years and why the hell is George Osborne involved unless his next post is Minister within the Department of Abject Failure but
don’t concern yourselves about any fatal accidents involving this ‘Convoy’ expect they’ll get some investigator to claim the computer was under the
influence think they used an excuse like that before.
truckman020:
MIGHT HELP EASE CONGESTION they say,it is not lorries that cause the congestion, it is too many cars
Yup. Lorries are doing useful things, cars need not always be there. Except people getting to work. Or doctors on calls. Hmm, this list could get longer…help needed.
So what happens at either end - 10 blokes turn up with their trucks, er, where exactly, on a slip road, MSA, what■■?
Nine of them get out and do what, go home, back to the yard, get in a minibus?
At the other end, ten trucks stop nose to tail (still altogether hopefully) where, again? To find nine blokes loitering by the kerb?
Oh, wait the minibus has just turned up. 
This has disaster written all over it because of all the points raised in this thread from folk on the front (literally) line of the job.
Nobody in their right mind is gonna insure this type of transportation. Crash for cash and the slam-on brigade…!
The motorways are full of people every day who don’t have the confidence to do other than stay in the centre lane at 61 mph for the entire distance as it is, when they see one of these lashups, who knows what will happen.
And then there will be the boneheads off their face on a substance of choice having some early morning " fun ", trying to see if they can wreck it up and get it on Youtube.
Hideous. Zeppelin comes to mind - look how well that went.
this article is suggesting that they will be running quite close together.
arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2016/03/d … in-the-uk/
there will need to be some very clever techknowledgey to control the braking, in an emergency situation they will only be able to stop as quick as the one with the poorest brakes. I think they will need buffers as per what we have on trains.
I guess the initial testing will be a bit farcical, and probably a bus will be following with all the drivers in to take control if it al goes pear shaped. but the future could be very integrated, driverless lorries on trunking duties, and the ability of any other vehicle to tag on behind. The driverless lorry on the long motorway haul will then be able to micro charge cars, vans and other trucks for the convenience and fuel saving. I can imagine future cars a bit like camper vans, tag onto a convoy, go and make your dinner, watch TV, have a sleep.
What happens if the lead vehicle goes down the embankment ? Do the 9 others behind him follow, could be some very big accidents if it goes wrong.
Surely it will cause more congestion.
What will the idiots that like to exit the motorway from lane 2 do when passing a 10 truck convoy travelling nose to tale? They’ll probably choose to slam on their brakes and come to a halt in lane 2 till the convoy passes before diving off down the slip road, chaos ensuing behind them.
When the convoy is passing an on slip, is the joining traffic going to have to come to a halt at the end of the slip road till the convoy passes before they can get onto the motorway? Or will the trucks be programmed to slow down to open a gap to allow traffic to join?
Someone else mentioned about when the convoy gets split up at traffic lights cos 10 trucks won’t all get through at the one time. Will the lead truck have to stop and wait on the convoy catching up or risk the communications with the convoy breaking up cos they are too far apart. What happens then. You’ll end up with 5 trucks stuck at the lights cos they don’t know what to do. Same with roundabouts. Not very likely that 10 trucks will get onto the roundabout at the same time.
The greed of the rich knows no bounds. Any job they can’t send overseas, they try to automate. Who will be their customers when we’ve all lost our livelihoods? 
The only beneficiaries from automated lorries are the companies saving money on wages. The government should kick this proposal in the stones right here and now. The Tories will never do such a thing though.
