No Hands! Google Car and the Truth about Driverless Cars and Trucks
We’ve all had visions of how our future would be. In class we’d look out the window and imagine The Jetsons-like flying cars zipping through the sky, and hoped that we would one day live in a world of flying cars and Charlize Theron look alikes. Well, guess what? That didn’t happen. But, while we’d hopefully get there one day, one thing the future has brought us is driverless cars. Not to rain on Google’s parade, but having driverless cars is a big deal. So, naturally we would be a bit concerned about what we are really (and literally) getting into.
So, What is a Driverless Car?
By definition, the term “driverless car” refers to any vehicle which can navigate through normal traffic via a guidance system akin to an airplane’s autopilot.
According to the lead engineer of the project, the Google car is programmed to exceed speed limits of up to 10mph or 16km/h, which officially makes them lethal too. This is serious news for law enforcement agencies like the FBI, who according to a statement which was released earlier stressed that driverless cars could be used by criminals who would have both hands free so that they could take aim more accurately at their squad cars. Although the vehicles are currently being tested by Google the report which was released by none other than the FBI’s Directorate of Intelligence is a real eye opener to a really exciting future.
But America is not the only place to get some driverless action, demon trucks can already be seen in Pilbara, Western Australia, where they are used to help the workers at the old coal mines. The idea of using these heavy duty trucks is to reduce the risk of human error, which is normally caused by fatigue due to long working hours. Similar fleets of heavy duty driverless trucks can also be found in the dirt roads of Chile and other parts of the Outback as well.
While driverless trucks are responsible for hauling over 200 million tons of material in Western Australia and logging thousands of miles, that doesn’t mean that everything will be hunky dory.
First off, using driverless trucks will not positively impact the geographical reach of a day’s drive since the attending drivers will need to stay awake all through the transportation of goods. Secondly, since the trucks will still need licensed truck drivers, driver retention would not improve. On the flip side driverless trucks will be able to respond more quickly in complex driving conditions making them relatively safe. Whether society will accept driver trucks and cars or not, the military has, earlier this year, the US Army dabbled into making their own autonomous zombies, saying that self driving vehicles, especially trucks are important because they give you the ability to drive through extreme conditions and can be modified and optimized to save fuel and increase performance.
Ending Note
Because of their benefits, autonomous trucks are being used more openly, and would eventually pave the way for the Google car as well.
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