I was driving to work recently and there was a ROAD CLOSED sign. I know the road and there are some roads off of it and so I assumed that the sign referred to one of them. Unfortunately the sign was in respect of my road and it was shut for repairs.
Whilst this may not be an issue normally I had to do a U-turn in order to escape and join the main road I had just left. The problem was there was a road sign that said NO ENTRY to stop drivers from joining the main road. Unfortunately I was then in the position, like other drivers, of having to ignore the sign and join the main road to finish my journey.
I wonder what would have happened if I had been in the same situation with a driverless car. Would it ignore the sign? Would I still be in it?
I was wondering if there were any other scenarios where the rules of the road might cause problems with a driverless car.
I then saw an article where someone was joking that their house was opposite a STOP sign. They had started noticing driverless cars in their neighbourhood. They found it amusing that the driverless cars always stopped at the STOP sign even if there was no other traffic around or any other reason to stop other than the STOP sign rule.
On my drive into work I go through a busy little suburb. There are two sets of traffic lights after each is a Yellow Box junction which you can be fined for stopping in. No matter how careful I am there are times when I find myself stopping in the yellow box junction. Cars have let someone in or a bus is let in or traffic didn’t move as I thought it was going to. Again what would happen to a driverless car if by accident it found itself stuck in a yellow box junction possibly as a result of a human interaction.
There are some other scenarios where a driverless car might need to decide whether to break the rules of the road or not.
- There has been an accident on a motorway and you are directed to use the hard shoulder to get around the accident.
- Our road has just been switched from 30 MPH to 20 MPH and there is a danger that the driverless car might not pick up this change for a day or two.
- Something might have fallen into the road i.e. a treed and you need to cross the no overtaking double white lines to get around it.
- How do you deal with protestors i.e. Stop Oil in the road?
- Also against the law to drive with a dirty number plate and if you have a dog for it to have its head sticking out of the window. How would a driverless car manage this.
- There are still laws about seat belts, use of mobile phones and alcohol/drugs that will need updating at some point.
Hopefully these will all be sorted out by the time you get your driverless car and that you wont be stuck somewhere because your car refuses to break any of the rules of the road.
Driverless Cars will never take off 