Saying 'driverless already exists with some human intervention' is nonsensical. The vehicle is not sans driver. Some poor unfortunate is sitting in the driving seat tasked with monitoring when the software and hardware might fail to operate safely and predictably - a miserable job which would leave anyone anxious on what might happen at any point in time.
There was an incident on the Underground which details how not one but four train drivers failed to notice a passenger who had fallen on to the tracks.
The report notes that :
the repetitive nature of the task under automatic train operation may lead to a state of underload, resulting in the attentional capacity of train operators being diminished. This can increase the likelihood of effects on performance such as reduced alertness or distraction.
Report 01/2025: Fatal accident at Stratford London Underground station
Indeed i've tried to describe the vegetative state syndrome before when the wheeze of the day was 'platooning' just another jam tomorrow headline that never came to anything, i won't go through it again boring everyone else as well as myself
They were going to trial it on some deserted sections of the M6 Cumbria, no doubt on a Sunday morn, then presumably roll it out on peak hours M25/A13/North Circular.
When i used to post on a well known trucker's forum, there were always experts popping up telling us of their trials with autonomous trucks and how brilliant they were and how they'd be here before you know it, that was probably 10 years ago the last one vanished, he disappeared like they mostly do when their breathtaking anouncements not only met with utter derision from decades served truck drivers who had been hearing tales like this for years on end, but none of these heady predictions ever came to pass.
The partly autonomous driving aids already fitted don't work as they are supposed to, drivers of decades experience have had to modify their driving, not in a good way, to stop things like AEBS from causing accidents, you can't find a secure phone signal that lasts going past a set of pylons, the new generation of AI cameras (reqd for that London) need constant fixing, yet we're supposed to believe all those truck drivers so despised on here (except when they're delivering essentials during national house arrest) will thankfully be all out of work in just a few years time.
On another forum, posts from some van drivers are finding their latest new issue vans are trying to steer them into oncoming traffic or the hedge, what lunatic ever thought allowing some half baked electronics to interfere with steering was a good idea, well if you want empty shelves in the shops plus stacked to the rafters hospital wards and funeral homes get truck makers to add that foolish gimmick to 44 tonners.
The thing about autonomous, is who's going to be taking the blame when error 404 crops up and our driverless wonder machine goes by its pretty well unstoppable self causing mayhem and destruction, does anyone really think some poor sap that's been sat in the cab vegetating for hours on end is going to take over at an instant and save the day by taking ideal action? ie he might as well be driving the blasted heap which he will be most of the time because that amount of electronics and sensors will throw endless faults....a quick persual of any drivers manual with reference to AEBS shows you where the blame lies, with you the driver, check the weasel words for yourselves.
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