Car Technology Moves on the UK

Driverless cars.

There as an allusion to this technology in my book Cold Suspenders. The technology mentioned there is more about “safety” control, and would could happen if the authorities could override the control of your car (more than just speed limiting).


Britain is leading the way globally in the adoption of driverless vehicles on national roads. While countries including the United States, Japan and Germany are all competing to accelerate the commercial acceptance of autonomous transport, Britain has developed a national consensus and regulatory roadmap that others lack completely.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/04/10/britain-is-head-and-shoulders-above-rivals-in-putting-driverless/?cid=sf24100241&sf24100241=1

Autonomous driving features, including automatic braking and lane-departure sensors, are becoming common. A recent study shows that British motorists choose to buy cars which have that technology as an optional extra Probably people are willing to pay more to gain access to enhanced safety benefits.


58% of new cars sold in the UK have some form of autonomous driving system in place, collision warning being the most common. 39% of cars now have emergency braking capabilities, and 32% have adaptive cruise control.

SMMT last year found that serious accidents could fall by more than 25,000, saving 2,500 lives every year by 2030, as a result of driverless vehicle technology.

http://www.smmt.co.uk/2016/03/more-than-half-of-uks-new-cars-now-sold-with-autonomous-safety-tech-finds-smmt/

Remote control cars?

The Department for Transport has a project looking at Intelligent Speed Adaptation. ISA  is a system by which the vehicle 'knows' the permitted or recommended maximum speed for a road and makes this information available to the driver or limits the vehicle maximum speed to the local limit. I blogged about something like this ages ago on a different site.

In my book Cold Suspenders, which is set slightly in the future I expanded this ability to control other parts of the car. One could imagine that once a system is in place, Governments will love to extend the use of it. Even with just the speed restriction, the Highways Authority could cause your car to halt if there was an accident ahead, or if you tried to enter a cordoned off area.

I was set thinking about this again by an article in the New Scientist about "Driverless Cars".   The self driving Lucas Jaguar PROMETHEUS car from 1994 had some interesting features - http://youtu.be/xlVx4Dhglkg . The video shows what could be done with the technology then. The article says that  the media were not impressed, describing the idea of cars that drive themselves as "madness".

Now take a look at the Google Blog where you will find:

So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research.

All very interesting, and of course it would rely on all sorts of other technological stuff already in use, and some yet to be developed. One suspects an awful lot of reliance on Satnav type stuff.
"Automation of cars is going to happen," says Paul Newman, a robotics engineer,  "Computing has caused devastating change and transport is going to be its next target."
Newman's team at the University of Oxford is developing autonomous cars - The Oxford Mobile Robotics Group.  

True Grit

It was supposed to be a picture of the hill going down from our house. Due to the flash being on, but all I have are white dots. I suppose it just shows how much snow was coming down.

I did take another picture of Barney (our Rough Collie), but I might of well have of taken a picture of a polar bear in a snow storm. Barney just loves all of the snow. The only bit that upset him was getting the fur on he feet all iced up. We had a bit of a time persuading him to put his feet in some (cold) water to help melt the ice.

Whilst Googling around for the weather I came across an fascinating site HERE. Some interesting data from someone's weather station.

The Bracknell Standard are doing their bit, and reporting the current situation on their website each day. It is interesting to note the comment about the salt/grit level, since the governments "Salt Cell" has taken over. Bracknell's deliveries have suffered since it seems.

A source said: ‘It would be fair to say that while some authorities have shown excellent best practice this time around, some just haven’t got their act together, again, and haven’t learnt from last February’s events

One senior highways officer told LocalGov.co.uk it was unfair those authorities that did nothing to improve their resilience and stock plans were now ‘shouting the loudest for salt’.

‘I accept everyone has to have salt but surely the answer is a properly planned stock management scheme. The other issue that has failed to have been addressed in this country is spreading rates. There is suggestion that the Highways Agency is spreading up to two or three times more salt on average than authorities. Is this really necessary?

Salt reduces the freezing point of water to -3C, so that very cold weather is a further problem. There being less vehicles on the road, there is also another problem it that the salt performs better when "churned", by traffic.

I am told that the SITA staff have been unable to perform the usual refuse, and recycling collections, but this has meant that some can be redeployed on other tasks such as clearing walkways.

There is information about road gritting by the council HERE.

Picking Blackberrys and dim burgulars

The Bracknell News tell us that burglars in Bracknell are not as good as the ones coming in from other towns!

This was from Acting Chief Inspector Mark Harling of Bracknell police.

Apparently "Bracknell’s location and easy access from the M4 and A329 made it simple for criminals to drive in, break into '10 or 15' homes a week and then scarper."

Perhaps this is where ANPR will come in. Instead of passively catching motorists doing a bit above the speed limit, it provides information on suspect cars entering and leaving Bracknell. There are of course privacy fears over the government tracking our every movement.

West Yorkshire have set up a rapid reaction police squad to intercept criminals' vehicles, flagged-up by automatic number plate recognition cameras.

At the above meeting the police also talked of the introduction of BlackBerry solutions. Officers with mobile devices are able to reduce time in the station and increase time spent servicing their community. BlackBerry smartphones will also help to maintain already high levels of security within the force. For certain tasks officers have to carry paper records such as photographs of suspects and briefing notes which can be lost or misplaced, presenting a security risk. On BlackBerry smartphones this information can be accessed securely and, if lost, the BlackBerry smartphone can be wiped and disabled by a central administrator instantly.

Read more here - http://www.publictechnology.net

A good example of the BlackBerry use is in West Yorkshire where it is helping police officers to outwit wanted suspects who try to bluff their way out of being arrested when stopped on the streets.