Driver-less lorry Dynamo magic circus act will fool the media

There is about to be a demo of driver-less lorries along the M6 and no doubt there will be loads of excited media and Press on scene who already seem to have been taken in, hook line and sinker, about the prospect of driver-less motor transport.

I have already posted much on the issue of driver-less cars.   See it here and Also here

Basically this is a form of communism in the sense that, to take away your freedom to drive any time, anywhere and in your chosen style, is to control you. Behind much of today's roads policy are The Greens, who hate any progressive infrastructure and independence and want to control roads. Their stated intention is 'to get people out of cars and cycling, on buses or walking' And that's exactly what will happen with driver-less vehicles. 

Driver-less cars will be out of reach for about 90% of UK's struggling drivers. They simply wouldn't be able to afford or maintain them. Can you imagine a 12 year old third hand driver-less car with all its systems worn out?

So take it from me, these won't be for the Proles who will have gone back 60 years to pushbikes, buses and Shanks' Pony. 


But to whose driving standards and CV will these vehicles be programmed? What is the driving CV of the designers? At the moment they are being designed to please the usual green rag tag and bobtail of cyclists, 20's Plenty, Living Streets and anti driver road safety amateurs.

Whereas we are designing trains to go faster and faster, and planes to fly at their optimum speeds, for some reason, even more crucial roads infrastructure, is being hampered, constrained and forced to be slower and slower. Make no mistake we are tampering with essential infrastructure here and this will have a devastating effect on UK's economics.  So let's program these vehicles to the driving standards of top, progressive and efficient drivers or not at all. 

 The M6 lorry demo will be a costly display of unreality. For a start even the organisers have had to accept that all the trucks will need a driver on board, so the benefit is going to be what exactly?

'Ah' they say. 'Because all the lorries will be in convoy and at a steady speed and  tailgating each other, there will be fuel savings'. Oh please! That would be a drop in the ocean to the costs in slower travel, slower deliveries and longer driver hours.

Before these convoys could start their trip, in the real world, they would have to ascertain the slowest vehicle which would need to be at the front.  Since all real lorries are different, with different engines, governors, loads and body weights, it would mean that the whole convoy is reduced to the slowest speed and that would be very costly. Perhaps, in due course, all truck operators will be forced to operate similar trucks?

In the real world, these convoys would need to be formed in a central marshaling yard where, as anyone who has run a town carnival would verify, it would take several hours to form the convoy after drivers have had to divert, from their direct route home, to the yard and long after they would have normally reached their destination, off loaded, and been home for tea, they would just be starting off. How costly would that be?

 For the demo, of course all the trucks will dutifully and by coincidence, be heading for the same destination, whereas in real life, some would leave at the first exit and others at other exits whilst other trucks will wish to join the convoy at varying locations. So the disruption of any convoy would soon result.

Can you imagine trying to merge with a motorway safely just as one of these convoys began to trundle past? It would be a nightmare.

Of course this demo could only be on a motorway, where, just like railways and air travel, there's no opposing traffic, no cyclists, no dogs or horses, no kiddies, and no pedestrians and disabled scooters. Automatically flying planes in open skies, landing on massive empty runways, the technology required to do it is relatively crude compared to that needed to deal with all the varying hazards and issues on roads. Can you imagine trains and planes in tailgating convoys? I think our MPs and media are being fooled that the technology, already available in one limited field, is good enough for roads. It isn't.

So for driver-less it's back to the drawing boards for the officials who will need to conclude that the idea is a costly pipe dream as soon as possible.

But drivers and truck owners alike shouldn't be deluded, this is not for private control or independent use. So don't be supportive of the driver-less project: It isn't for you.