Originally Posted by
Maelochs
One thing pretty much every rational and honest person realizes and rp[edicts is that when there are more driverless cars, traffic will travel more smoothly.
Anyone who had seen the huge snarl-ups at every exit on a highway because humans are too stupid to cooperate for a high=-speed merge understands this completely and immediately.
It maybe inevitable that traffic will go to 100% driverless and drones, but it will be a long transition period that will likely extend beyond all of our lifetimes.
So for the next 50+ years, there will always be those few drivers on the road that aren't going driverless for one reason or another. We've had "hot rods" since the inception of automobiles. Are people going that up to ride in drones? And adding even a few drivers into the mix will mean all the drones will have to obey more or less the same rules as drivers obey today.
Will we be able to hot-rod our drones/driverless cars?
One could imagine vehicles going into train/convoy mode with vehicles driving inches from the bumper in front. Cooperatively allowing cars to peel out of the convoy, and merge in. Brake commands being instantly relayed to all vehicles in the convoy.
So, in theory, one could have perfect traffic flow... but that will also mean that software will have to be shared between the half dozen manufacturers, and everything will have to work together. What happens when that one drone on the road has a glich? Perhaps simply it is running an obsolete computer and chokes with a new upgrade?