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"Road Trains" Ready To Roll
clickclickdrone writes to mention that "road trains," a system linking vehicles together via wireless sensors, could soon be rolled out in Europe. The system is designed primarily for cutting fuel consumption, travel time, and congestion. "Funded under the European Commission's Framework 7 research plan, Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) is aimed at commuters in cars who travel long distances to work every day but will also look at ways to involve commercial vehicles. Tom Robinson, project co-ordinator at engineering firm Ricardo, said the idea was to use off-the-shelf components to make it possible for cars, buses and trucks to join the road train."
This is not always the case. In some cases, the reduction of the drag from turbulence off the rear means that the leading vehicle also gets a benefit, though not as much as the following ones. This is true in stock car racing and in skating; I don't know about cycling.
Hell, apparently, is other drivers.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"aimed at commuters in cars who travel long distances to work every day"
I have a better idea. Hook those road trains up to their houses, and move the houses closer to work. That will save a LOT of fuel, not to mention wear and tear on the infrastructure.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Exactly, this is a quick and dirty optimization for commuters. By just linking up on the fly and on the highway that's already being driven, any properly equipped cars can hop in instantly and follow the route they normally take. Loading onto an actual train takes time on both ends and requires the drivers to board/depart only at train stations, making it more effective for long distance (3-8+ hours). It also allows this to go all along the freeway you travel, rather than just along the rail lines, meaning more people would use a system tied to just the highway.
Of course, I can guarantee this system would limit travel speed to the legal speed limit, so this wouldn't catch on with the majority of commuters. Most cities, if traffic isn't moving 15mph, it's going 15mph faster than the speed limit.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
You don't check a railway train driver's safety record. Or a bus drivers or a taxi drivers. Yet you are putting your life in the their hands on the basis that you trust they are qualified from the job, haven't been sacked for being incompetent, and have some trust in whatever safety systems are in place. This is no different.
Except that with this system, they don't need to be jammed. If everybody in the train presses the accelerator at once, knowing that the car in front of them will as well, everybody gets to move. You're not as limited by the following distance required by an unpredictable human driver and the unpredictable circumstances ahead.
Reducing inter-car distance reduces the amount of road you need because you put more cars on the same amount of pavement, and the same highway functions as a much larger road. But it only works if you get the humans out of the loop.
Of course it also provides opportunities for truly spectacular failures.
"What if the "lead driver" rides the brakes, thus smoking my brakes/warping my disks?"
You do know that the default state of most cars is 'slowing down', right?
"What if something falls off / out of a car ahead of me (a more common occurrence than you'd think), can I quickly escape the train, and who is liable when by design I can not?"
Yes. The same person that would have been liable if the exact same thing happened today. And that's a stupid question, isn't it? Do you really think it will be designed as a death trap? Do you not think anyone working on this will have your sagacity and forethought? Where in the plans did you see 'Ensure vehicles have NO ESCAPE (muahahaha)'?
"What if the guy in front of me is one of those smokers whom flicks ashes all over my car ventilation system? Bonus points if I'm allergic / asthmatic? Or an unmaintained beater pumping my car full of particulates, unburned hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide? I bet an unmaintained diesel could literally kill someone, maybe not the driver, maybe a passenger, maybe a sleeping baby... What if a driver in the train passes out from the CO fumes, or has a heart attack or whatever, is everyone in front of him just dead meat when he plows into them?"
OK, so you don't like highways. We get it. This isn't meant to solve any of the personal problems you have with cars. It's to make the method of travel slightly more convenient and slightly more efficient. All of those things are issues today, and would not be made worse.
"What if the lead driver successfully goes thru a big puddle, flooding my intake and blowing my engine, and then I'm crashed into by the remainder of the train?"
Last time I went through a puddle there wasn't a tidal wave behind me.
"What if its typical winter weather conditions, with patches of ice/snow, my car is ordered to brake, but I spin out of control into other vehicles because my individual car was on a patch of snow/ice/sand at that instant? Or just simply plow into the vehicles in front of me, whom can't accelerate out of the way because they are now temporarily on an icy patch?"
You're the stupid kind of brave if you don't already fear these things on TODAY'S ROADS.
"What if, being the ridiculously hyper-paranoid USA, the lead vehicle is a terrorist/rapist/pedo/filesharer (according to my TV, aren't they all the same?)"
Then you'll never know or care. Stupid question.
"What if, the lead vehicle routes us thru an area that is ethnically incorrect, and the police pull me over (the crime of Driving While Black in a White Neighborhood, etc)."
Your post isn't even amusing, it's just painful.
"What if a vehicle is carjacked while in a train, is the lead vehicle liable? What if the lead vehicle was working with the carjackers?"
They'll jack a parked car instead, you dumb piece of shit.
"What if the lead driver drives over a pothole fast enough to set off my airbag, but not his?"
Then that sucks for you.
"What if the lead vehicle makes a minor traffic error that results in no physical problems, but some legal problems? Like not slowing down for an unmarked speedtrap? Everyone gets a ticket, only the lead, maybe the system designer or manufacturer or dealership? Who pays for the higher insurance?"
What if you had actually thought about the bullshit you asked and tried to determine if it was a valid question or if it instead tried in vain to disingenuously prove a point?
I'm just sayin, every /. article with new ideas gets swamped by people stating absolutely obvious problems as if the people working on that project were all functionally retarded. I said the same thing just a few days ago but this article really brought the geniuses out of the woodwork like I haven't seen in some time.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage