Re: Robocar--a decade away?

"James Gassaway" <dtravel@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>Actually, of the various automated vehicle plans that I've heard of as
being 
>seriously considered, the one that seems to be the "front runner"
requires 
>some sensors be implanted in the road bed.  But its "only" some
relatively 
>inexpensive electronics in holes drilled in to the road every hundred (?)
or 
>so feet and the on-board electronics can be retro-fitted to existing 
>vehicles, which is why its the likely winner.

There was some early good results with a system that planted magnets in
the
center of the lanes every few feet, which would indeed be easy to do to
say, the HOV lanes. The idea is that cars in that lane would form a chain
that was close enough together to get benefits from drafting, and would
'allow' for hands-off operation in a very limited way. Not that hard to do
on a single lane of an expressway, with no crazy machine vision systems
trying to find the lane.

It scares the willies out of me though - what if the lead car blows a
tire? *
-- 
* PV   something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
       like corkscrews.