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Can you imagine a world where you pop out to the driveway and get into your car. but there's no need to drive. You simply programme in the destination and the vehicle is intelligent enough to take you there with no level of driver interaction at all. Well while this scenario sounds like something more suited to the big screen, it turns out that the technology is more or less there and the reality isn't as far away as you might think.
We can already see a range of features on modern cars which reduce human control over the vehicle, either to improve driver comfort or out of necessity. Automatics have been around for years, cars can turn their own lights on, automatic windscreen wipers are common, and ABS and ESC take over in an emergency. We're even seeing cars that can park themselves, stay in lane, wake us up if we dose off behind the wheel and brake if we get too close to the car in front.
For some people this is a dream come true, taking the pressure out of driving. For those who enjoy driving it's more of a nightmare, encroaching on their control of the vehicle and ruining their enjoyment of life on the road. At the risk of upsetting this group, a driverless car will be appearing in the near future at Heathrow airport.
The man behind it is Martin Lowson, a guy who is better known for deisigning space rockets. The only required interaction is a start button and touch screen where passengers programme their destination. With Heathrow already bought into the concept there are several local authorities in the UK looking at the technology as well as interested parties from around the world.
While drivers can concentrate on other things during their journey; reading a good book for example, or preparing for a business meeting, the main advantages come in the form of safety and efficiency. Most accidents are caused by driver error and taking the driver out of the equation eliminates this problem. The vehicles are also likely to operate at closer to the optimum speeds and in the most efficient way, reducing fuel usage and CO2 emissions.
Realistically this scenario is some way off, as much because of the social impact as technological constraints, but drivers will make errors, no matter how good they are, and so it is important to embrace developments in new technology - especially the ones that keep us safe.
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