Tuesday, 11 October 2005

The driverless car

"A driverless Volkswagen has won a two million dollar prize offered by the US Defense Department to the first robotic vehicle to cross the finish line in a historic desert race, officials said Monday. Experts involved in the milestone said the technology could not only revolutionize military battles by keeping soldiers out of harm's way, but could also ultimately save the lives of ordinary motorists." Source.

So we can at last look forward to the time when the human and the car decide to go their separate ways. And I'm all for keeping soldiers out of harm's way. I wonder if we may come to see technology that, like the internet, evolves from military origins and in this case helps to save the lives of ordinary pedestrians? - or vehicleless people as we might come to call them.

11 Oct 2005 08:28:05 | Mobility and change

1 Comment

Dividing vehicles into the broad categories of "passenger" and "cargo", I expect that these advances would have a different impact on each group.

First, cargo carrying will see the biggest change. These vehicles will never be in a hurry and the operators will never be tired. Also, they will operate during all hours of the day, reducing congestion during the workday. They could even spend a lot more time in tunnels.

Passenger vehicles may not change much. Perhaps the biggest change would be an explosion in the availability of taxis, since a person would not need to be paid just to keep the car ready at a moment's notice.

Posted by: Adam | Tuesday, 11 October 2005 at 13:40

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