Headline Sep 15, 2015/ ''' LIVE BRILLIANT : GO COMPUTERS '''

''' LIVE BRILLIANT : 

GO COMPUTERS '''

A PRIVACY ADVOCATE  -[John Simpson],  at Consumer Watchdog, a Californian lobby group, is concerned that-

Google is not so much teaching computers to drive as it is pioneering a nightmarish form of advertising. Google might be tempted, for a fee, to favour routes that lead past its advertisers.

He presented his case to the transportation committee of California's state assembly. But the stark truth emerges that in Automotive Technology : 

Driveless cars promise to reduce road accidents, ease congestion and revolutionise transport.

Since the late 1990s some cars have had the option of   ''adaptive''  cruise control that uses a radar system to monitor the position of the car in front, and accelerates or brakes automatically.

General Motors,  America's biggest car maker, is designing  a ''super cruise'' option that steers automatically in slow traffic, following lane markers and avoiding other vehicles, says Jeremy Salinger of GM, who heads the team developing the technology.

Ford, America's second largest carmaker, is developing something similar called Traffic Jam Assist. BMW has launched a compact electric car, the i3, that can do this trick. It costs less than Euro 40,000 ($50,000) says Ralph Huber of BMW.

Autonomous driving in slow traffic is a logical combination of adaptive cruise control and the lane keeping systems, already available in some vehicles, which either warn the driver if the car starts to drift out of lane, or apply corrective steering to keep it in lane.

In addition, a growing number of car models have the option of self-parking systems. The job of the drivers is, in short, slowly being chipped away. The industry will build fully autonomous cars, says Mr.Salinger.

The addition of autonomous need not add much to the cost. An extra $3,000 or so should cover it, Mr Coelingh believes. And there is evidence that drivers are prepared to pay for add-ons that improve safety as well as convenience.

Volvo already sells a popular driver-assistance option called City Safety for around $2,000 for example. It slams on the brakes if a distance-measuring laser or camera detects a vehicle or pedestrian in the car's path.

A similar braking system on Mercedes Benz vehicles have reduced insurance claims for bodily injury by roughly a sixth, according to the Highway Loss Data Institute, an American Research group 

If driverless cars to become commonplace, several problems must be solved, aside from working out how to build them in the first place. Appropriate regulation will be needed to reassure other road users.

In America, Nevada has taken the lead in this regard. Some years ago, the state's Department of Motor Vehicles issued its first three autonomous-vehicle licenses to Google. More and More applications from other firms have arrived.

There are other additional worries, Vehicle control software remains  ''fairly hackable,'' says David Zuby, chief researcher at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an American Industry body. 

Unless protocols vehicle-to-vehicle communication are robust and secure, attackers could cause chaos by making cars crash into each other.

And although driverless cars can be expected to reduce the number of accidents and road deaths, they will not eliminate them altogether. 

It is only matter of time before the maker of an autonomous vehicles is sued for unleashing a killer robot, says Michael Toscano, head of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, an industry body in Arlington, Virginia. 

But if self-driving cars really are safer than cars driven by humans, the law could work in their favour, too. Some cities might ban manual driving, to save lives and ease congestion.

Since driverless vehicles could transform car design, redefine car ownership and affect urban planning, there is no doubt that  self-driving cars are coming. They are the future.

It is less clear where they will take us.

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