I just read a blurb about DARPA currently testing driverless cars driving through real traffic.

I’m guessing that implementation might be less restrictive than what is suggested in this article.

Start with putting radar in cars. Radar locks you on to the vehicle in front of you. It slows down, your car slows down. Sophisticated cruise control.

Radar monitors for unusual ‘things’ on a collision course. Acquire a target and the vehicle begins to slow down/brake, alerts the driver, and sends a slow down alert to surrounding/following cars.

Everything except notifying other cars is technology already being installed.

There are vacuum cleaners that are that smart.

Put position guides along highways. These might be nothing more sophisticated than the painted lines on roads in non-snowy conditions. Visual markers of some sort. Something cheap.

I’m not seeing a need for a ‘lead driver’. Certainly no need for an implanted road cable like early test systems.

A disgruntled computer programmer hacked his own car’s wifi system, re-programmed it, and “stole” a convoy of cars, leading them to the wrong destination in the middle of nowhere.

(-:

In 1997 California PATH demoed a fully functional “road train” in San Diego. See the video at

http://www.path.berkeley.edu/PATH/Publications/Videos/NAHSC2.html#

I used to live in the Central Valley of CA where the tule fog can set in for days and it was hard to see more than a couple car lengths in front of your ride.

The Highway Patrol used to run ‘convoys’ for those of us who had to make our way north or south on Highway 99. They would cruise along a bit under the speed limit with their lights flashing and we would fall in behind like ducklings following mom. It decreased our odds of smashing into a stopped vehicle.

Think of being able to put a lead car in the HP position, one with really good radar able to probe miles ahead for stopped vehicles, whatever. Ducklings queue up on the freeway entrances and wait for a “hook up” signal from the last car in the convoy. Accelerate into line and go on auto pilot.

Get a notice from your car ahead of reaching your peel off time.

Even stick one of those ‘rear defender’ trucks that they use to protect line painting trucks at the back of the pack. Could mean an end to the huge multi-vehicle pileups in the fog….

Oh, and collision avoidance radar is already being factory installed in some up market cars. Radar could make individual drivers in the train aware of something like a dog or deer running toward the road.