Cooperative Cars Battle It Out In Holland 139
An anonymous reader writes "The first cooperative platooning competition, where vehicles use radio communication in addition to sensors, was held in Helmond, Holland a week ago. By using wireless communication the awareness range of each vehicle is extended, enabling vehicles to travel closer together which increases road capacity while at the same time avoiding the shockwave effects responsible for traffic jams. The Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge distinguishes itself from earlier platooning demos (e.g. the PATH project) by having a completely heterogeneous mix of vehicles and systems built by multiple researcher and student teams. Using wireless communication to coordinate vehicles raises concerns about the safety of such systems, would you trust WiFi to drive your car?"
Re:so who do you blame? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sort of right. But when the benefits are large enough and obvious enough, a way is found (by changing law, if need be).
Self-driving cars are significantly awesomer than normal cars, and I strongly suspect that their advantage is sufficient to force the necessary changes.
Imagine what self-driving cars would do to DUI, to child-delivery, to parking-problems, to taxi-prices, to overnight long-distance driving, to commutes, to airport-parking-prices, to accidents-from-tiredness, to congestion.
What will happen is -some- place will allow them, and shortly thereafter people elsewhere will demand that they be allowed, with sufficient force that they will be. (and in this case, industry is on the same side: the car-industry wants to sell these, at a significant premium initially offcourse)