Finding Inspiration in Las Vegas
Major hurdle is winning over politicians and a few holdout drivers
Admit it or not, what happens in the Excited States eventually happens in Canada, too (eh).
Take the commercial trucking profession. Down there, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is dragging my baby boomer thought-process into the 21st century. I’m talking about computer-driven and/or computer-assisted vehicles. That means rigs too.
The major stumbling block is the fact there are 50 states whose politicians are reluctant to give up any authority to the feds, but if (read: when) Congress eventually gives the green light to the NHTSA, there will be an estimated 100,000-plus vehicles operating on U.S. highways without human input. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Sweden, Italy, U.K. and Germany are currently leading the world in the safe development and adoption of self-driving vehicles, and the Excited State’s Congress is keen to join them.
Freightliner is owned by Daimler, which is a cute way to spell Mercedes, and has produced an unbelievable (to me anyway) rig called the Inspiration. If its GPS detects any obstruction during its autonomous trip down the road, the rig will immediately demand the human take over control. If the human does not respond quickly enough, the rig will simply, and quickly, pull over and stop. Wow! I like that part.
To test out the Inspiration, they took it to Las Vegas, where, like Vancouver, the traffic is often a nightmare. A human was along for the ride. Bumper to bumper, and not one close call. No stress for the driver.
To get such a system into mass North American production, the politicians all have to agree, and all North American drivers will quickly get on the bandwagon, including yours truly, Johnny Skeptic.
Finland recently did a test of driverless mini buses carrying commuters on regular traffic routes. There was no loss in regular ridership. People accepted the fact it was an automated minibus. The U.K. is about to allow driverless SUVs in downtown London, and even autonomous trucks on the M-6.
But for my money Volvo pulled off the best example of what driverless units can do. Down in Brazil, the company designed driverless trucks specifically to work in the sugar cane fields. The units are so exact in their movements that crop production has increased by over four tons per acre, primarily because young plants are no longer being destroyed by the vehicles during harvesting of ripe plants. The automated trucks will not move more than 25mm off a preset course, so the driver does not have to worry about destroying plants and can do other tasks.
Win for the truck designer, win for the farmer with increased revenue, and win for the government with increased revenue from taxes, and so on and so on.
The remaining hurdle is to win over politicians, and maybe a few holdout drivers.
They’re coming. Driverless trucks will soon be a much more common sight on North American roads. But I still can’t help thinking about that Will Smith movie, “I Robot.” Still freaky to me.