UK to allow tests of driverless cars on public roads to start in January.
In the same way that has already begun in the rest of the world. Same legal/insurance issues stand (as elsewhere) and are likely the bigger barrier to adoption.
Since there are a total of zero commercially available driverless cars, was that distinction really required?
Nowhere in the world has permitted non-test driverless cars because non-test driverless cars aren't a thing yet.
The whole "rest of the world" remark seems like smug condescension. Which is a little odd as only a small handful of places even allow test-cars to be run on public roads. Plus isn't this a welcome addition? The UK's roads are quite a different test bed to many West coast US cities where there is no grid pattern, roads are smaller, and curvey.
Well as this is a news site, the title could be interpreted as new, i.e. something new and interesting is happening. It would be perfectly possible (if not slightly, or very unfeasable) for a jurisdiction to be drafting laws regarding the legal use of new driving technologies, even before they before commercially available (arguably they would never be able to be commercially available until they were regulated/legal).
Apologies is there was any condescension, I was only trying to convey that it's not that different to what's been going on elsewhere. I'm from the UK myself.
I appreciated the clarification since I don't closely follow the situation, and the headline suggested to me that UK was somehow ahead of everyone else here.
Are you saying that the UK has a grid pattern and wider streets? I had always heard that the UK had narrow streets in many places, but that's just from watching Top Gear.
That's what I assumed but did a quick Google Maps search and it appears to be mostly a grid at first glance, unclear wording, "The UK's roads are quite a different test bed to many West coast US cities where there is no grid pattern, roads are smaller, and curvey."
Where were you looking at, Milton Keynes? Peterborough? I'm struggling to think of anywhere gridlike in the UK, though I'm sure some of the '60s towns have them.
Glasgow is gridlike; I was there for the Games and it felt like a very un-British street layout. But I don't think anywhere in the UK has grid numbering ("42nd street" etc). We don't do the continental thing of naming streets after significant dates either.
The UK certainly has plenty of surprising road layout, often involving roundabouts, oneway systems, medieval street plans, and roadworks.
I was gonna say that Glasgow city centre is pretty atypical - resembling US cities close enough that a few parts of World War Z (which were meant to be Philadelphia I think) were filmed there. But then I realised that Edinburgh's "New Town" (actually hundreds of years old) is a grid-layout too.
New Town in Edinburgh and the modern city centre of Glasgow both date back to the mid-18th century. They're very unusual for the time insofar as they had a large plan for a large area.
Around Liverpool and Birkenhead were the only places I looked, they're not perfect grids of course, I don't know hardly anything about European street layouts though, that might be considered very gridlike compared to other places in the area.
Salisbury had a grid pattern back in the 13th century. But mostly small roads follow old field boundaries that can be very old and bendy. Even new developments will fit into old field layouts and have curved roads.
>* But mostly small roads follow old field boundaries that can be very old and bendy.* //
The places I know of - Lincolnshire and East Lothian - where roads follow field boundaries have a lot of straight roads with 90deg bends. Interesting you suggest that field boundary following would make roads more "bendy" (suggesting non-straight edges and non right-angles).
Perhaps the fields of Salisbury weren't dissected for inheritance purposes or are older and follow more natural lines?
It depends how old the field is. Around villages you can see very irregular fields that are very old. But a lot of the larger fields have straighter boundaries as a result of intentional enclosure. In lowlying parts a lot of the land is drained, and smaller drainage channels will follow straight lines.
Two wide cars can't pass there, one of you has to go back to a place without the hedge. I'd like to see how that kind of negotiation is handled by self-driving cars.
Take a look at London - basically the kind of road layout you'd get if you threw a bunch of toothpicks on the floor and used those as the guidelines for random branching.
Not counting driving on the wrong side of the roads. I wonder if google cars' AI only needs a "Drive on the wrong side of the road in this country" command, or if some more complex programming is needed.
If you look at Google Maps (at least on the desktop,) there's usually directional indicators on odd roads and in any directions in the UK you'll notice how the blue line goes clockwise around roundabouts instead of counter-clockwise like our friends in the rest of the world
Perhaps less to do with the grid, but more the fact that your road systems were designed for the automotive era. In old residential areas driving can be very challenging after everybody's returned from home as streets barely wide enough for two cars to comfortably pass have cars parked up both sides.
This obviously presents challenges such as driver etiquette (car needs to play nicely with others but still get you to your destination) and safety (children can lurk unseen between the cars and leap out out).
Perhaps there are parts of America that are like this, but Hollywood hasn't shown many of them to me.
As tlrobinson says, I was trying to clarify the content of the article, as the title could easily be mis-interpreted to mean that there were no restrictions.
In addition, I suspect that the cars will be 'self-driving' cars rather than 'driverless' (the distinction being that the former has a human behind the wheel, which can take the wheel at a moments notice).
As for the rest of the world, from the article:
The US States of California, Nevada and Florida have all approved tests of the vehicles. In California alone, Google's driverless car has done more than 300,000 miles on the open road.
In 2013, Nissan carried out Japan's first public road test of an autonomous vehicle on a highway.
And in Europe, the Swedish city of Gothenburg has given Volvo permission to test 100 driverless cars - although that trial is not scheduled to occur until 2017.
The case of 100 volvo cars on the streets 2017 is a bit different than just allowing controlled tests on public roads, that is 100 cars given to customers for every day use, not engineers.
Audi is currently (as in this week) test driving self-driving cars on an elevated expressway in Tampa this week, that has been shut down for this purpose.
I don't understand the distinction. If the UK is allowing tests of driverless cars, it must be allowing them on the roads, and of course "in January" means "starts in January", what else would it mean
Driverless cars are a risky unproven technology, and done wrong could easily kill people.
It'd be like taking "FDA approves new drug for human testing" and making the headline "FDA to allow human use of new untested drug."
Both are technically true, but the latter makes it sound like a widespread thing being done regardless of poorly understood risks. And that's misleading, since it's being done in very limited scope to help us understand and reduce those risks.
While the title is technically true, it could easily be interpreted to mean anyone could buy or build a driverless car and drive it on UK roads starting in January.
In the same way that has already begun in the rest of the world. Same legal/insurance issues stand (as elsewhere) and are likely the bigger barrier to adoption.