I decided to go on line this morning to see if I had won the £115m lottery jackpot. Unfortunately it wasn't me, however I was very interested to read that Google have been testing a self-drive car, this is fascinating for a variety of reasons, not least of which that it shows just how diverse Google's business interests have developed - anyone else remember when they were just a search engine?
However as someone who loves new technology it is simply the idea that we may soon be driving around in real automobiles has got my mind racing.
Just think of what this would mean, on the down side it will completely wipe out the driving school industry - especially RED driving school's claims that it is a recession proof industry - I can also imagine it may increase the number of cars on the road, after all you could easily send a car off to get the kids whilst you are going elsewhere - now that I think about it taxis will be surplus to requirements as well, why call a cab when you can just call up your own car to pick you up from the pub.
Anyway onto the good, the main selling point is better safety, Google drove the car around San Francisco on what are some very challenging roads, each of The google test drives had a computer programmer and a human driver standing by and the police had been notified of the route in advance, however there was one reported incident however that was actually caused by a human driving into the back of the googlecar so if anything it could be said the problem there were not enough automatic cars not too many! Along side safety of course comes the potential to have much faster driving and less jams, the fact is that speed is not actually dangerous when driving, driving too fast is the dangerous thing, if you are driving at 200 on a completely flat straight road you should be ok (may be a bit frightening the first time, whilst at the same time if you are following someone in icy conditions at 20 you are probably going too fast, the google car should be able to plot you a route that ensures you can travel at the fastest and safest speed possible, if they were to move the technology on and actually create a mainframe of all traffic movements you could actually find that the car could easily programme you in the perfect route avoiding any need to stop at all (I guess this may put TomTom out of business as well.
Well I for one will be waiting with great interest to see what becomes of this trial and would gladly buy an auto drive once they are available (They look like ordinary cars with a sensor which reminds me of google's street view vehicle) Although I have to admit that since I started writing this I have realised just how many industries this could actually wipe out - but that would not be until the technology is very widely used - thinking about it, isn't there a Dr Who where the auto drives start killing people? perhaps I am not as big a fan as I was at the start of this post.
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