"Driverless" vehicles are probably a long way off -- at least in the sense of a widespread application of something that could let your grandparents get to the doctor's office, for example, on their own.
The idea seems to be most popular among people who have the greatest detachment from an understanding of how technology "trickles down", and is made adaptable to a mass market. They are usually very young, have been raised in an "over-sanitized" suburban environment, and often have been over-saturated in the fantasy world of Hollywood which, for sure, never attempts to explain why the dreams they peddle aren't feasible in the real world.
The "driverless" cars ballyhooed by Google and others perform their dog-and-pony show under tightly controlled conditions; but any venture into real-life 24 hour / 7 day reliability has to account for any number of outside factors, and those factors themselves don't conform to a standard model.
To draw a parallel, from an industry we all know and love, let's consider, for example. a single CTC-controlled division of perhaps 150 miles; it;s not likely to have more than perhaps 20 remote-controlled interlocking plants at which a train can be stopped. re-routed or re-started. Yet other than a handful of subway shuttles and mining-based operations, no serious attempt to replace engine crews has been proposed. The number and diversity of potential conditions and obstacles from outside "the system" is just too great -- even assuming that the right of way can be secured by a fence.
Now consider a highway operation, with an infinite potential of complicated intersections, weather conditions, changes in the distribution of weight on the vehicle (Truckers call it "load shifting", and it can happen anytime, occasionally with serious consequences), far-greater variations in gradients, and any number of irrational and unpredictable actions by those critters called human beings.
Nevertheless, the possibility of a self-directed vehicle adaptable to the movement of smaller quantities of valuable freight, door-to-door over the highway system is tantalizing -- the potential savings are immense. But if a pilot program ever emerged, the logical location would be those segments of the Interstate Highway System which permit the heaviest vehicles, and operate in relatively flat country -- the Ohio, Indiana, Kansas and Florida Turnpikes, and the New York State Thruway -- where "double-bottoms" of full sized, rather than single axle trailers are already sanctioned, and ironically, referred to by (motor) dispatchers as "trains".
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting, however.
What a revoltin' development this is! (William Bendix)
