Originally Posted by
Road Fan
I've read in several literature sources that such transponders are under development, using transmissions similar to WiFi. These have range of 100's of meters, if not a km or two. So perhaps kids, dogs, pedestrians and cyclists can be electronically identified to the AVs as objects of interest.
Kids and adults, fer sure. Dogs and deer? Hmmm.... Imagine being a member of a tagging party that is going to sift through the wilderness and attach transponders to all bear, moose, wild boar, elk, deer, wolves, and wild felines. And which has to go out after every birth season to get the new generations. But it may not be necessary - passive thermal cameras have a much longer range than radar and lidar.
They do tag a lot of wild animals (and could vaccinate them at the same time against things like Rabies). Of course, they never get all of them, except for some critically endangered species (I think every California Condor is tagged including fledglings).
Dogs get tags, and could have an option for an E-Tag.
Hunters, of course, could benefit from hacking the transponders.
As far as kids, it certainly would be an advantage to know where they are at the theme parks, malls, and walks home from school.
Still, I'd anticipate the accident rates to drop without the addition of transponders. It is hard enough to get a lot of cyclists to use quality lights. Then just reduce accident rates when using the transponders.
Of course, we're getting close to this technology with cell phones.