Cyclists taking advantage of driverless cars is a worry, says transport consultant

The worldwide toll for road related deaths is 1,250,000 (WHO Report).

So far there has been ONE (reported[Tesla July 2016]) death in testing automated cars. The advantage with an automated car is - that it will remove the 'human' element of driving and the associated human error.

The top 10 causes of RTI's are:

1. Distracted driving - eliminated by a computerised driverless car.

2. Speeding - eliminated by a computerised driverless car.

3. Drunk driving -eliminated by a computerised driverless car.

4. Reckless driving -eliminated by a computerised driverless car.

5. Rain - risk reduced by computer sensing the different driving conditions.

6. Running red lights -eliminated by a computerised driverless car.

7. Running stop signs -eliminated by a computerised driverless car.

9. Night driving -eliminated by a computerised driverless car. 10. Design defects - this is the one element which has failed and caused a fatality

IF driverless cars were introduced it will not totally eliminate road traffic incidents, but even if it reduces these incidents by a minor percentage it will be a step in the right direction to reduce the current human carnage. 

It is clear. Driverless cars will only work as a mass transport system on urban roads if cyclists and pedestrians are legally restrained from using the same roads as the cars.

Of course, this aspect of the debate misses the central point, and, of course, Mr Transport Consultant knows that. I think. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming his reference to driving down any busy urban high street was accompanied by him laughing sarcastically and doing air quotes round every word he said.

Anywhere that pedestrians are likely to be able to slow cars in this manner (ie busy urban high streets and neighbourhoods) they should be absolutely free to do so, and those areas would be much more pleasant if they had automatic right of way. From a sane planning perspective, polluting metal boxes should only have right of way on major carriageways.

Choose to drive down Oxford St or the like? Then be prepared to yield to absolutely very other type of road user and reach your destination around 2am.

I can see where he's coming from; if you're a pedestrian in a hurry to cross the road and you look at a small gap in moving traffic you're (probably) thinking "will I make it, will the driver slow if I've mis-judged".  That equation changes once you 'know' the driver will slow, so now there is no disincentive not to cross the road wherever and whenever you like, except for your fear of the reaction of the person in the car (but now they probably aren't even looking at you) and an appreciation of how your actions ruin traffic-flow and have an environmental cost.  

I have a feeling most busy commuters don't care or won't even appreciate those last two points and the temptation to just cross rather than waiting for the crossing-lights or even going out of their way to use a crossing at all will just be too great.

Then, once someone has stopped the flow of traffic, everyone else can start to cross wherever they like and in a city as big as London it's difficult to imagine the traffic actually ever starting to flow again!

I think the key is that people may have a different reaction to what they will see as disrupting the operation of a machine vs. what they will see as disrupting the actions of another person.  The Google AI behind the wheel of the Jonny Cab isn't going to get out and give you a public dressing down!

I've seen this arguement put forward elsewhere but with human drivers taking advantage of driverless cars.

Imagine a queue of driverless cars at a junction leaving nice big safe gaps between them.  It will be too tempting for some human drivers to overtake the queue and change lane at the last minute because the driverless car will always avoid the collision and let them in.

Headline should be "idiots taking advantage of driverless cars a worry, says transport consultant".  It won't matter if they are on foot, bike or in a car because a minority of people will find a way to save themselves 2 seconds by causing delays for everyone else. 

Has Mr Lord been anywhere near Oxford St? If he had he would already be aware of the masses of pedestrians walking blindly into the street. Self driving cars couldn't go anywhere near a street like that.

This is total bollocks. Self driving cars don't have magic brakes, they just have (hopefully) 100% attentive drivers. The stopping distances won't be massively shorter than those achieved by human controlled cars, just a bit better due to machine speed reaction times. The optimimum improvement in reactions times is finite, and not exactly huge given that sober, alert humans can hit a brake pedal in about half a second (ish, I guess). OK, not every human is sober and alert but most are.

However, this all assumes that the computer controlling the car can "see" and interpret the situation as well as a human, which is a tough ask. I suspect the designers of self driving cars will be relying on the superhuman reaction times to compensate for the trickier problems in the guidance software, for v1.0 at least.

Even on a boris you already get held up by the buses on oxford street so the whole thing is very tongue in cheek. But ai is great and the cars will learn that they can pass within a few cms of a cyclist without an accident and so... well if I wrote the algorithm that's how it would end up, don't trust programmers!!!!

Why on Earth would anyone with any sense at all want to travel down Oxford Street in a private car anyway? And why should our transport infrastructure bow to the needs of peiple who choose to do so? Make it free of motor vehicles and hey! Problem solved!

I know Adrian Lord as a pro-cyclist person, so think you may have confused the message from him.

The whole point is that IF driverless cars are made which steer away from cyclists/pedestrians the freedom of car occupants would be impeded. "If" is a very big little word.

Read John Adams take on the issue here http://www.john-adams.co.uk/2016/08/17/driverless-cars-and-the-sacred-co.... The whole point is that autonomous cars won't be advanced in the direction of making cycling/walking safer precisely because the ride of the driverless car passenger wouldn't be so easy and convenient.

I remember when motorways and road building were seen as solutions to the domination of the roads by cars and lorries. What happened was that car and lorry usage massively increased with more road building.

Similarly, "smart" cars can be bult which won't drive into peole cycling, but won't be for the reasons I have given.

Like we haven't got better things to do than disrupt traffic...

Why would I choose to slow down urban motor traffic with my body as a speed bump?

When I am cycling I want to get somewhere, I travel at a sedate pace, but not deliberately slowly. In urban environments this will make no difference whatsoever, because the thing slowing motor vehicles down is volume of motor traffic.

Why would there be "be less need to segregate cyclists from traffic"?

A driverless vehicle passing within inches or following behind me while I am cycling will feel just as intimidating as a non-driverless motor vehicle. Segregation helps people feel subjectively safer, trying to tell people it is safe to play with the robot cars is going to make no difference to cycling uptake.

More vehicles on the road (driverless or not) means more need for segregation. I don't care how well they are driven (or drive), a large moving lump of metal is still something to be wary of.

And what if cyclist killed kittens tomorrow because chickens started to fly.

senseless crap of a cyclist hater. these people would forbid you to use a bike because "its not fair that you're doing exercise and not them". Basically, anything goes. Anything at all.

I imagine that there will be less demand to own a vehicle - calling one up for your journey on a pay as you go or monthly contract seems more likely.  Surely the focus will be on developing the level of comfort and technology available to passengers and vehicle design can go towards smaller more flexible pod vehicles (the 'i-pod'!! ) which could then be chained together with others along main arteries to provide drafting benefits and minimise road space. maybe electric vehicles, certainly more efficient due to smaller footprint, lower weight and 'smoother' control (no tearing away from lights, or unnecessary braking). Each pod will automatically link with the others to communicate, say, destination or navigation data and to control speed changes.

With access to high speed wifi connectivity and a laptop connection, or maybe the latest PlayStation or X-box, or virtual reality, or video conferencing, or quiet zone, or even mobile gym (say Wattbike or treadmill) in your pod why will the driver be in a hurry - or even notice or care what's happening outside? Each pod can be customised for its users need for that journey. Work, or relaxation, can start the moment you step in - have a beer (or a shower?) on the way home from work. Just chill!

With smaller vehicles the existing road space can be reallocated - surely we don't need 6 lane motorways in that world - 2 lanes in each direction with vehicles say 2/3 the width of a modern car? That leaves a lot of space for cycle paths.  Maybe some roads can be allocated to classic driver vehicles subject to strict licensing (and control). Encouragement to migrate to the new 'autonomous' vehicle world from government through scrapping schemes and penalty licence costs - surely we could switch to 99% autonomous within a decade of the technology being proven?

Sounds great, where do I sign? 

Think John Parkin, is right when he told the Financial Times (link is external) that much of the infrastructure that's being implemented to keep bikes and cars apart in inner-city environments, will be made redundant by autonomous technology reaching maturity.

However there is going to be overlap period of a decade or decades.  Segregation is neccesary to achieve high modal share for cycling and we cannot to afford to wait for 90% autonomous vehicles. Although I am expecting Central London to be first area that only autonomous vehicles will be allowed.

Think Gilligan is also right about there being lots of autonomous vehicles on the road. We really need to introduce road pricing for autonomous vehicles in cities right from the word go.  Part of the Uber problem is that it's just too cheap - the cost of the journey doesn't reflect the impact of congestion, colateral air pollution, noise, climate change etc.

I don't think driverless cars will bring about cycling nirvana. Our legislators' chief concern will be to 'smooth traffic flow', and keep it flowing. People on bikes threaten that paradigm, so vulnerable road users will be far down their list of concerns, as they are now. They will have two choices - provide safe continuous infrastructure for cycling on, or, more likely, introduce legislation that bans vulnerable road users from roads.

In addition, if the aim is for everyone to be able to summon a car for every journey at a moment's notice, what happens all these vehicles before and after the trip? If autonomous vehicles 'do away with the necessity of car parking', that can only mean more vehicles in almost constant circulation, touting for fares as taxis do currently. That doesn't bode well for active modes of transport, congestion, pollution or road damage. And if they're all electric, it just pushes the pollution elsewhere.

In cities such as Hong Kong, where taxis are ubiquitous and which could be among the early adopters of driverless technology, people on bikes are rare and pedestrians are confined to tunnels and walkways either above or below ground level. Walking is possible, but it's far from convenient and direct.

I thought that Adrian Lord was a friend of cyclists?!

Surely if you're stuck behind a cyclist in a driverless car there will be contactless, or Apple pay option for £80? Swipe card, wipe cyclists. 

You can actually see a market for aggressive A.I. here. Safe....but fast. Or marketed as safe but faster than another model's A.I. Bottom of the range gets you Granny Edith and the more you pay the further towards White Van Man you get.

"If that’s the case, how long would such a vehicle take to drive down Oxford Street "    A private car can't drive Oxford Street anyway, and driverless busses and taxi's are a while away (until they make a means for a taxi to differenciate the unseen outstretched arm of a cyclist signalling, or of a pedestrian wanting a lift)   

That said, I should be able to test the driverless vehicles in the area I work in soon, they are trialling some small electric driverless  minibusses on a very restricted route, probably from early 2017..... I'll throw a "friend" in front of one to see what happens

I can see a new problem of self-driving cars giving people inside of them more opportunities to rant and rave at cyclists, or throw stuff at them.