I’m waiting for the driverless parcel delivery van. They pull up outside your house and you help yourself. Bring it on.
shep532:
I would imagine in the days of steam trains where an engine was manned by 3 people all there to operate it, plus ticket people they’d never have thought it would change. Even in the days of ‘on the buses’ I doubt they’d have dreamt the driver would end up taking the fares, dealing with people with disabilities etc as well as driving.Times are changing and these changes need to be viewed with a fresh outlook. I don’t believe an HGV will drive on our roads without a driver in my lifetime or even maybe my 5 year old Grandsons lifetime but I am sure it will happen. Meanwhile the driver will be there to take the blame etc
Until then a lot on this forum are young enough to look forward to this very advanced cruise control that you can occasionally use in the UK that’ll keep it in its lane, make sure you don’t hit the vehicle in front and react to vehicles around it. It’ll just be another tool to use.
Maybe had the artic in lane 2 of the M62 this morning had this kind of system he wouldn’t have drifted into lane 3 causing me to brake sharply as my front end was almost in line with his back doors. He did give me a friendly wave when I passed a few minutes later - what a nice chap. Of course we know this was a ‘non-event’ hardly worth mentioning
I must agree that the idea of ‘platooning’ does seem a bit silly for the UK and can’t understand why the Government is trialling this kind of thing rather than the likes of the Mercedes Highway Pilot that Germany are trialling. Our roads just aren’t right for platooning.
I think it is exciting times ahead for vehicles, and not just commercial vehicles. I’m about to road test an automatic motorbike. Full dual clutch technology where the bikes chooses and changes the gears much in the way a lot of HGVs do now. Most people on forums are slagging it off - even though they haven’t tried it. Whereas most magazines and reports suggest it IS better than a human in MOST cases. Isn’t technology great?
Honda’s NC700?
I test rode one a while back, quite impressed, saw one at work and spoke to the rider, but his was a full manual one.
cartageman:
I’m waiting for the driverless parcel delivery van. They pull up outside your house and you help yourself. Bring it on.
It’ll probably come with a catapult installed and chuck the parcels over your fence! 
waynedl:
shep532:
Honda’s NC700?
I test rode one a while back, quite impressed, saw one at work and spoke to the rider, but his was a full manual one.
No - the new Africa Twin which is the second generation DCT gearbox … But this isn’t the place to be discussing this. It’s a truck drivers forum 
All this tech serves what purpose? Avoiding the deeply controversial political decision to force people to learn to drive and and enforce it.
As it stands now all people need to do is pass a woefully inadequate test then slow down for scameras. With more and more of these (so called) drivers on the road there are lots of accidents. More legislation diminishes responsibility which then sees a decline in self discipline. End result - bad driving standards by untrained drivers who dont care about anyone who is not in their little tin box (which they think will save them anyway thanks to all the safety equipment which now comes as standard) 