The most recent people targeted for replacement by robots?
Car drivers—one of the most common occupations around the world. Automotive players face a self-driving-car disruption driven largely by the tech industry, and the associated buzz has many consumers expecting their next cars to be fully autonomous.
But a close examination of the technologies required to achieve advanced levels of autonomous driving suggests a significantly longer timeline; such vehicles are perhaps five to ten years away.
By Mark Boada, Senior Editor
The Holy Grail of traffic safety is that someday self-driving vehicles will make traffic accidents a thing of the past.
But as increments of that technology are introduced, drivers must be thoroughly trained in their limitations or else run the risk of depending on them for more than the equipment can deliver and of being involved in crashes they thought couldn’t happen.
Case in point: a senior vice president at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) warned the audience at a global symposium on automated vehicles in Princeton, New Jersey, last week that the currently most successful type of crash avoidance system can’t prevent all kinds of crashes.
One of the biggest trends in global fleets remains the same as over a decade ago: continually working to control spend and maximize efficiency.
Ben Lieberman, whose son was killed in a crash involving a distracted driver six years ago, wants to find a way to stop drivers from texting and driving before other teens are killed.
He has given talks at schools. He has attended law enforcement conferences. He has seen people throw up their hands over the lack of a reliable field test to determine for sure whether a driver in a crash had been texting around the time of impact.
“I kept hearing over and over again, there’s no such thing as a Breathalyzer for distracted driving,” Lieberman said. “So I asked why not?”
Overcrowded roads clogged with cars are a fact of life in many cities.
A recent study found that the United States was the most congested developed country in the world, according to transportation analytics firm INRIX.
Congested roads cost U.S. motorists almost $300 billion last year in wasted time and fuel.
Luckily, with the popularity of social media, we can chronicle traffic jams all across the country.