From: Billy Brown (ewbrownv@mindspring.com)
Date: Sun Aug 22 1999 - 21:38:47 MDT
Spike Jones wrote:
> Nowthen, at the risk of making this post a scattershot mess,
> consider current transportation technologies that are not being
> implemented because of liability uncertainties, such as caravanning.
> The engineering infrastructure has quietly become available over
> the past couple decades, with the introduction of cruise control
> and those wonderfully competent antilock brakes, for a car to
> be computer controlled to follow the car ahead at a speed of
> 130 kph at a distance of 1 meter. A string of cars of indefinite
> length can caravan along at highway speeds in the far left lane,
> *tremendously reducing* the overcrowdedness of these wonderful
> interstate highways, now stretched to the limit. This technology
> has already been demonstrated, but as we know, it is not being
> used for no one will insure a caravan.
Caravaning has more problems than just overblown liability issues. Humans
maintain larger following distances for very good reasons, after all. If a
collision occurs anywhere in that caravan (and it will, due to mechanical
failure, software glitches, weather, tampering by idiot drivers, and who
knows what else) the result is a major disaster. At high speeds your
stopping distance is so large that dozens of cars will invevitably end up
plowing into the mess at high speeds, resulting in multiple fatalities and
dozens of injuries. Then the cops and wreckers get to spend hours prying
apart a huge mass of twisted metal while the reporters sit around and take
pictures. Even if the overal fatality rate is lower than for human-piloted,
people aren't going to go for it. The results of the occasional accident
are just too spectacular.
You also have the problem that people do not want to give up the feeling of
personal control over their own fate, no matter how illusory it may be.
They only do it on airplanes because there is no other way, and even then
thay hate it. Automated cars would be much worse - everyone knows perfectly
well that they can drive a car, and they like the feeling that they can take
action if something goes wrong. Consequently, participation in a voluntary
caravaning system would be just about zero no matter what claims you make
about safety and convenience.
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
ewbrownv@mindspring.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:04:51 MST