My role as a Community Relationship Manager for the IET involves a lot of travelling to visit and meet with my volunteers. Most of which is by public transport but on the odd occasion I have to use my beautiful car to drive to where I need to be at the time I need to be there.

 

Yesterday’s jaunt was off to visit my volunteers in the IET Surrey Network at the University of Surrey in Guildford. This of course involves a lot of sitting in traffic on the London Orbital Car Park, otherwise known as the M25...

 



And although the in-car stereo provided some form of entertainment whilst sat stationary, watching my fellow travellers and staring at the brake lights of the car in front, I found my thoughts (which quite often go off on a tangent) turning to a number of driving/car related topics:



1. Can someone invent a way of telling the pressure in your tyres without having to use a pressure gauge on the tyre valve please? Surely it must be easy to include some kind of pressure sensor on the rim of the wheel that sends a signal to a gauge in the dashpod which will let me know that I need to add some air in a specific tyre? 



2. Why do people still insist on using their mobile phones while driving? Given the plethora of hands free devices available for in-car use, I still witness the erratic driving style of the habitual hand-held phone offender. Obviously the thought of a possible £1000 fine does not worry them. But then if they can afford to pay the fine, surely they can afford a simple hands free kit to install in the car?

 

3. Why do people use sat nav’s when they’re on the motorway? Are the huge blue signs not enough to inform you of where you need to go?



4. I don’t like the road surface between the M3 and A3 junctions as it makes my tyres make a funny noise…. 



5. Are the speed cameras on the overhead gantries working? <gulp!>  



Given the amount of modern day distractions (phones, sat nav, in-car DVD players, sophisticated music systems etc) now available to take away our concentration from mastering the mechanics of driving, i.e changing gear, using that lever on the steering column that informs other drivers in which direction we will be shortly turning, as well as looking at the road ahead of us instead of at the sat nav, phone, stereo etc., is it now time for the whole process of driving to be automated? Will driverless cars become a reality sooner rather than later? Would you be entirely happy with all control being taken away?

 

The IET Control and Automation Network in collaboration with IET France are holding an event on The Psychology of Autonomous Vehicles on the 27^th November in Paris where Dr Nick Reed from the Transport Research Laboratory will discuss how the advent of autonomous vehicles may change our relationship with our cars and how the safety aspects of using such vehicles will change the way we drive.

 

I for one, am not sure that I’d be entirely happy with not feeling in control of a moving vehicle at speed.

 

But what do you think?