

Road Trains get ready to roll - ironkeith
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8349923.stm

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ironkeith
I have been a little obsessed with this idea lately, so I'm pretty excited to
see some progress. "Training" cars to share the efforts of
acceleration/deceleration, cut wind resistance, ideally reduce collisions,
minimize the effects of "traffic fluid dynamics", and allow me to play on my
laptop during my commute is technology I can get behind.

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chrischen
Could possibly speed up traffic too since there will be less delay from slow
reaction times. But I'm not too sure how turning will work if a long truck and
a compact car are in the same road train.

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weaksauce
I would imagine that it is only for highways to start. It could also be
handled in software if it was used for trips with sharp turns. The software in
the lead car could indicate that the turn was initiated at this point in space
and to turn hard when you get there. Presumably there is some kind of GPS that
would help with that.

The real worry(though not too terrifying) is more about a rouge driver with a
hacked transmitter mimicking a "professional driver" and sending them bunk
data that could veer them into an accident. One way to mitigate this is by
having some kind of sonar/radar/sensor on each car in the cardinal directions
that would indicate if the command was safe. I am sure there are other ways to
game the system that I am not seeing from this cursory reflection.

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Luc
There's many ways to game our current system, too. You can just ghost-drive
onto the highway in the wrong direction if you want to. What I mean is that I
don't think every problem needs a technological solution - simple legislation
and jail time should do it. EDIT: I agree it makes sense to have fail-safe
systems, of course.

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chrischen
Yes but hacking the system allows you to remain physically safe and anonymous.

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andrewtj
Initial thought on reading the title was that it'd be a struggle to run road
trains in most of the EU and UK, but thankfully the article wasn't referring
to one of these <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Road_Train_Australia.jpg>

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sdkfisljdsd
Road trains will share the road with everyone else. Just one car cutting in
front can lead to a horrific accident. It will be similar to real train
accident but more frequent.

Plus the feeling of control is very important. Flying is safer then driving,
but numbers be damned, in a plane you have no control so it _feels_ a lot
worse then driving.

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fan
Re: "Feeling of control is very important...feels a lot worse than driving."

Citation? I'm not saying it's not true. I'm just curious if there are actually
surveys of this. I've personally never felt a subway/tram/plane was any less
safe because of lack of control so found the claim hard to empathize with.

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Semiapies
It's like a bus, but with far greater fuel consumption, a far larger road
footprint, and the bonus chance to have a multi-car accident due to a software
hiccup.

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rbrcurtis
I'd be very worried about both wireless security and wireless interference.

