Home, James
I was reading today how driverless cars are cleared to be on the roads of the UK next year. Yeeks!
The article spoke about the possibility of having a car with no controls, or a car with controls so that the driver can jump in if there’s an emergency. Surely if you’re constantly watching out for problems you might as well be driving?
It also mentioned lorry convoys, where the driver in the first lorry drives and the other lorries follow along behind. Again, these other lorries would have drivers “in case of emergency”, but the article suggested that in the mean time they could perhaps read a book or have lunch.
If they’re reading a book over a nice bit of lunch, how can they take control in an emergency? Many drivers don’t manage to avoid trouble when they’re concentrating, let alone having a nap.
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draliman on life 
My luck the leader driver in my convoy would drive under the speed limit and hit their brakes every few minutes. Better than crashing into a ravine, I suppose.
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Bump… drive… bump… drive š
I think the computers are supposed to keep them all coordinated. Until one of the computers crashes (closely followed by the lorries).
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Oh, better yet, the lead driver is one that keeps going back and forth on the gas pedal…vroom…stop…vroom…stop.
Still, if you are in one of the trucks further back, not a bad way to earn a paycheck…
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Very true, money for nothing. Bit boring though. I can stay awake when I’m driving (!) but as a passenger I tend to drop off, so I’d certainly never see a problem coming.
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From a soapbox: Seems like accidents waiting to happen. Alas, we simply flow with an ever-changing technology driven world.
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I get the feeling they’re moving way too fast on this whole thing. Of course, in 20 years (or less) we probably won’t even blink an eyelid.
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I love the idea of driverless cars. I’ve been following Google’s progress in this and it is pretty amazing. I think the best use case would be as a taxi service though, especially one for parties where everyone can drink and there doesn’t need to be a designated driver. I would trust the auto driving more than a drunk driver, lol.
Love that comic though, lol. š
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I actually enjoy driving, and I have control issues š
Taxis or after-party driving are good applications though. Definitely safer than a drunk driver.
I’m glad you enjoyed the comic, it’s been months since my last DraliDoodle š
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A driverless car?! Whatever next? Frightening, truly frightening!
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I certainly don’t like the sound of it š¦
Park-assist, pedestrian avoidance, ant-lane-drift – all good tools to help the driver. But the driver is in charge! Driverless cars sound a bit too “Skynet-Terminator” for me!
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Wonderful idea. We can’t get drivers to stop texting or talking on the phone … or for that matter, eating. Anything but actually driving. Now, they can go soundly to sleep and wake up exactly when there’s an emergency. Right. What could go wrong with that?
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It’s absolutely foolproof!
And I just thought – imagine driving along only to get a text from some hacker to say if you don’t immediately transfer x amount of money they’re going to crash you into a tree.
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Ah, yes. As a woman with a pacemaker, I’m already worried about hackers stopping my heart. Now I can worry about one more thing. Would we need a drivers license to drive a driverless car? If so, it wouldn’t help the people with limited sight. Just make totally distracted driving even better. And where ARE those flying cars, eh?
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Good question. I expect early on a licence would be required, until they’re sure it’s all working. Falling asleep will probably be frowned on too.
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I’m still waiting for the flying cars that were promised to me as a child by the science community. š as a blind person a driverless car is very appealing, if it’s safe. The first thing I missed as a blind person was my freedom and the ability to go whenever I wanted to. A driverless car would go a long way to word giving me my independence. š great post!
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Yeah, what about those promised flying cars anyway? They had them in “Back to the Future” š
It is very true that driverless cars would be amazing for blind and partially sighted people. They would return so much freedom.
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Life is probably all about “being there”. Bring on the driverless cars, the flying cars…bring it on!
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Yeah, let’s do it š
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No way am I letting a car squire me about town all by itself!
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Same here. No car’s gonna be the boss of me š
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But would these drone vehicles brake for squirrels!?!? Better yet, would one brake for Buster???
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No-one brakes for Buster š
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I love interstate’s or expressways. I drive as fast as I can get away with. I plug in my radar detector, crank up the music and feel free. I love it.
My last ticket was 91 in a 65, my mistake. I should had waited for the 75 zone.
A driverless car would never give me that feeling.
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Ooh, you’re so naughty š Driverless cars would be pretty boring.
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Ali, It should only take another couple of hundred years for them to reach here, so no problem. I’ll be watching you people in the UK motoring around on TV. The rickshaw union and car and two-wheeler businesses here would probably block it no matter when it was tried. It could get nasty. It would be interesting to see it tried. Good luck with it there. š —Susan
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You wait, I reckon driverless rickshaws are next on the list š
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Ali, Actually, the traffic is getting so jammed up here that no one will be able to move, driverless or not. I don’t know about driverless ricks. Computers could never think like the Indian mind. Everything would break down. Computers wouldn’t realize that sometimes the rick has to drive up on the footpath to get around the jams. š
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I guess with computers in control no-one would get anywhere š¦
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British roads are quite scary enough without all this new techno junk, on top of driver-less cars they want to start delivering all our online purchases via drones. So if the cars don’t get you the falling drones probably will lol.
Love the DraliDoodle š
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I read about the drones a little while ago. I am not a happy chappy about that idea š
Glad you liked the DraliDoodle!
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I haven’t read through all of the comments yet, but the truth is that the only accident that ever occurred with one of Google’s driverless cars was when an actual human was at the controls.
True story.
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Having passed yet another upside-down car on the way home this evening in a not-dangerous-at-all spot, I can well believe it.
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We already have driverless cars: the humans at the controls who are texting, listening to music, eating lunch, nodding off, daydreaming, quarreling with passengers, drunk, drugged … a woman was just gaoled for killing a man while using TWO mobile phones as she drove; and she’d already been reprimanded twice for mobile phone use while driving. I look forward to ‘real’ driverless cars. š
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Driverless cars would certainly be safer than the mobile phone bunch and all the rest. I think I’d prefer a car which took control in an emergency though, rather than being completely autonomous.
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I might agree, though developing such a vehicle might mean trying to implement Newton’s Third Law or even Lorentz’s Butterfly Effect. š
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š
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I don’t get it either. How does that work? A bunch of car lemmings on the road. That cartoon gave me a laugh!
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It’s a bit worrying, but progress and all I suppose…
Glad you liked the cartoon! I haven’t drawn many recently, too much flash fiction to write š
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Oh this made me smile!!! Yay drali doodles!!!!!
(hmmm I think I love exclamation marks…!!!)
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When driverless cars come out, people will look back on this post and wonder “how did he know?”
I love exclamation marks to!!!!!!
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Fast forward January 2019. Truck convoys we get but they’re still driven by humans and overtaking them on the motorway still needs a clever human. Come on you lazy programers, what are you waiting for? It’d be nice to sit in a car and read a book. (from threefoldtwenty dotcom)
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From what I’ve been reading recently, truly driverless cars are still a lot further off than all the hype seemed to suggest…
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