- Have we reached the peak of innovation in television?
- What could be done to combat speeding on our roads?
- Autonomous vehicles
On the first of these my contribution questioned whether society was keeping up with developments in television and how many developments would achieve marketing success. The second suggested more control of our driving habits and the third total control involving no human intervention.
I want to examine three "driver aid" devices fitted to cars and assess how helpful they can be. As I did in my contribution to the first discussion above, I begin with a simple one which has been around for a long time.
Self cancelling trafficator.
You set the indicator flashing, make the turn, and it cancels when you straighten the steering on completion of the turn. Simple and quaint in concept, and I imagine it worked quite well in the 1930s, when, I presume, it was introduced. Even on roundabouts, which in those days were of fairly modest size and few in number, people knew what you were doing when you signalled thus.
Nowadays we still see people signalling this way on larger roundabouts. To make a right turn they set the right indicator flashing, and it continues to flash as they go round the roundabout, and ceases flashing just as they take the exit from the roundabout. This is not exactly the Highway Code recommendation, but can you fault people for using a device in the way it is designed to be used? Then there are those that try to indicate correctly but are frustrated by unwanted cancellations. This can happen on a large roundabout, resembling an octagon rather than a circle, over a major dual-carriageway intersection, or approaching a complicated intersection where the road bends left and right . And you can't guarantee it will cancel when you want it to; it is the driver's responsibility to check.
Two of my earlier cars did not have self-cancelling indicators and I felt in no way deprived, more in control. There is the correct moment to cancel a trafficator just as there is the correct moment to set it. One maker in particular - Citroën - was late in fitting self-cancelling trafficators but a Citroën owner I knew shared my view that he was quite happy without them; manual cancellation is part of the discipline of good driving and you always need to check anyway.
The usual argument in favour of self-cancelling indicators is that they are a safety precaution in case the driver forgets to cancel. But there are many situations where it won't cancel. On a motorway every change of lane should be signalled but you can't expect the indicator to self-cancel with such a slight deviation of steering. And motor bike trafficators still don't self-cancel, as far as I know. I don't find "forgotten" trafficators more of a problem on motorways or from motor cyclists than anywhere else.
This is a device designed for a bygone age, and it has not been brought up to date. I could suggest a five-position control, whereby one "click" away from central position sets self-cancelling and two "clicks" away sets non-cancelling (possibly with a louder warning beep to remind the driver).
Cruise control.
I first met cruise control several years ago driving hired cars in the USA. Now it is widely available over here, even with manual gearboxes. It can certainly be pleasant, on a not-very-busy motorway, to let this maintain a constant speed leaving the driver to concentrate on the road and what lies ahead. The control can usually be "suspended", e.g. if traffic conditions force a speed reduction, and restored to the former set speed subsequently.
Associated with cruise control is "speed limiter" whereby the driver can set a maximum speed but maintain full control of speed below this maximum using accelerator and brake if necessary. There is an obvious link here to the discussion, "What could be done to combat speeding on our roads?" This works well on busier main roads, and lets the driver concentrate on traffic conditions without worrying about going above a maximum speed. It can help a driver to avoid exceeding the speed limit, but it relies on the driver setting. It is possible to set it above the official speed limit.
Yet this is not popular with everyone. My wife won't use cruise control and get nervous when I use it. Overall, it works well on major roads that are not too busy, but is not much use driving through London or the bendy, hilly roads of the Yorkshire dales.
In common with the self-cancelling trafficator, it does not sense its surroundings. The next device does, to a limited degree.
Ultrasonic sensors.
These detect whether the car is getting too close to an object, by causing alarm bleeping noises. Very helpful if you are reversing at night into a parking bay behind which there is a bollard, which the council has helpfully painted black. I am not so sure for parallel parking between two cars, where it is necessary to pass so closely that the beeps become continuous. On reversing into my garage, or driving out, it is impossible to avoid the alarm sounding because of the closeness of the door posts. There are many occasions where I just need to ignore the alarm. "Crying wolf" comes to mind. Others have told me that they also can find the alarm off-putting under some circumstances. This is a relatively new idea in need of further development.
I think it is going to be a while yet before self-driving cars become commonplace, but by all means let us continue to develop them. There is plenty of scope for the spin-off to improve the driving aids on manual cars.
