The Future?

[administrator]

If you haven't had your daily dose of paranoia yet, try this from Saturday's Telegraph.  The interesting comments are noted in the intro and then developed about two thirds of the way through:

[GSouthee]

I take it he has never travelled on the M20, M11 and seen the constant flow of traffic at 80 plus already!!

As to 30 years time I will be long gone ;D

The world is going mad.

[TTM]

Living in the continent, I drove to the UK for the first time this Summer in a very long time and I was shocked about a few things :
- The 70 mph speed limit is nothing less than a mortal pain in the back. I would be curious how many people cause accidents because they fall asleep, as it almost happened to me.
- Cat's eyes. Those are so helplessly annoying that at first I thought their purpose was to prevent people from changing lanes... or to prevent people from falling asleep due to the ludicrous 70 mph speed limit?
- The generally appalling condition of the road network pretty much everywhere. I could not avoid a giggle the first time I saw a modern Italian supercar.

If the gentleman interviewed in the article above had an ounce of common sense he'd probably admit that Classic cars are in fact better suited to such driving conditions than modern ones which are not really fun either on poor roads. But then I'd guess such folks may think they always have the right answer when asked how long a piece of string is, when the bottom of the problem is that the money needed to keep everything working is never being taken away from where it's being hidden.

Hopeless.

[rsk289]

The FBHVC will be keeping its usual close eye on any consultations or proposals that might impact on us, as ever.

A thought - if one drove one's classic onto a motorway 'illegally' in an autonomous future, what would the authorities do?  If all vehicles are these environmentally damaging* electric autonomous things, I presume that would go for police vehicles too.  I don't imagine they would be prepared to ram you to force a stop...

*'zero emissions' but only at the tailpipe!  What about the disposal of rare earth elements, generation of electricity etc.??

[Rob.Hendriks]

the right answer when asked how long a piece of string is - twice as long as its middle to its end (as quoted by my friends 11yo)

[rsk289]

I take it he has never travelled on the M20, M11 and seen the constant flow of traffic at 80 plus already!!

As to 30 years time I will be long gone ;D

The world is going mad.

Try my end of the M11, where it becomes the A14.  80?  I can only dream of 80...

[AC Ventura]

So classic cars have to be banned on the basis they won't be able to communicate with autonomous vehicles? Well, in 2017 there were 37.5 million registered cars on the road in the UK. Of that number just 2.54 million were cars registered in 2017. That's 6.7% of the total. So by the same argument, it's not just classic cars that will need banning because they can't communicate with autonomous vehicles, it's the other 93.3%, or 34.96 million cars already on the road.
I bet there's not a minister in the cabinet who has any in depth knowledge of autonomous car design, the limitations and dangers. Remember these the same gullible incompetents who told us to buy diesels.......