I was driving down to Cromer on Friday night and hit a big traffic jam on the Kings Lynn to Hunstanton ring road. This was a warm sunny Friday night around 7 o’clock and the start of school holidays so the roads were busy. Initially thought it was an accident as an ambulance came past with its flashing lights.
I was wondering in the age of driverless cars whether all the vehicles would be talking to each other and keeping their passengers regularly updated regarding any hold ups.
My car might have asked “Does anyone know what the hold up is?”
The ambulance might have replied “Not an accident but I am in a hurry to get to the hospital so please keep the roads clear for me to pass”
My car could have had a look up tale to see what problems normally occur and being Norfolk it might have asked “Is the hold up due to a combine harvester?” Or “Is the hold up due to an elderly person doing 15 mph in their Honda Jazz?”
There are 2 inherent problems to these requests.
Firstly I believe some farmers get some bizarre kick from having a trail of cars stuck behind them on nice sunny days and as such would have either banned their tractors computer from talking to other vehicles or ripped the computer out completely. Therefore stopping frustrated driverless cars getting any information.
Secondly whist driverless cars will be of benefit to a lot of elderly people there are still the ones for whom the computer generation has passed them by and are much happier driving themselves around with the most hi tech gadget being the trip computer.
The truth of the hold up was that Kings Lynn council had thought a warm sunny Friday night peak holiday time was good time to get 4 workmen to check the cats eyes in the road, I think my driverless car when getting this information would have sent me the below message.
Driverless Cars will never take off 