Over the past few years we’ve heard more and more about driverless cars. It started with stories and sightings of the Google test car in California. A lot has already been written about driverless cars. I’ve decided it was time for me to weigh in as well.
Most of the coverage that I’ve heard to date has been from the standpoint of the owners or riders of driverless cars. From that perspective there is a lot of excitement and hope. I think people are ready to hope in a driverless car and be whisked away to another part of the city while they check e-mail and watch YouTube videos.
My real question is are drivers ready to share the road with driverless cars? Here, I’m not so sure.
I’m an unusual driver. It all changed when I moved to Montana in 1996 with the Air Force. I was one of a handful of officers who drove out to the missile alert facilities. While Montana had a Basic Law for speeding, and not designated speed limits on the various highways, the Air Force had limits. There was peer pressure to push those limits and arrive at a facility early as a favor to the crew we were relieving.
In that job there were days with very little to do. I decided to sit down and calculate what the actual drive time savings there was for driving 5 mph over the Air Force limit and 10 mph over the Air Force limit. I measured the distances on Interstate roads, state highways, and gravel roads. Our typical drivers were an hour to an hour and a half. I did the math and found that our longest route would save about 4-6 minutes doing 5 mph over the limit and about 8-12 minutes doing 10 mph over the limit. The people who were pressuring me to drive faster, were the same people who would stop on the way off base to grab a coffee and a snack, which was something they could have done the night before or before getting to the departure briefing. I timed this as well and on average the stop as we left base took 15 minutes.
This whole experience taught me that preparing for a trip and driving the speed limit got me to my destination early or at the same time as speeding. It also meant I wasn’t looking over my shoulder or constantly vigilant for those who would enforce the law. I always arrived more relaxed and having enjoyed the journey. As a side benefit, the cars get better gas mileage when you drive within the limits than when you exceed them.
All of this is to say that ever since then I’ve driven the speed limit. I have to say it hasn’t been easy. I get passed a lot when I’m on the road. I stay to the right as much as I can and I allow other drivers to go around. I do notice a lot of drivers speed past me only to slow down at the next intersection. On the Interstates I notice a lot of cars pass me, then about an hour later pass me again because they had to make a stop. On good road trips this can happen three or four times in a day.
Probably the worst place to drive the speed limit is in town. What I’ve found is that on city streets and residential areas, other drivers are in an awful hurry. They are trying to beat the next light or get back to a fast road. The paradox is that these roads have the slower limits because there are more pedestrians and small children out and around the roads. There are driveways and intersections are closer together meaning that cars and trucks are coming and going from the traffic flow more frequently and the environment is always changing. We need more time to react when something unexpected happens. That time comes from reducing our speeds.
Today on my regular commute to work I take a route that keeps me off the Interstate. It is like a bypass. Many other drivers take this route to avoid the inevitable rush hour slow downs. There is a stretch of that route that is in a residential area and the speed drops from 45 mph to 30 mph. I’ll admit that I drive it at 35 mph and when we get to the shopping area where the speed limit is 35 mph, I do drive 40 mph.
Now I have yet to be behind a car for more than a few yards after the speed limit drops. I’m always the front of a car train that can be four to six cars long as other drivers are piling up behind me. I’ve had numerous times when the road widens and there are two lanes going our direction where the car behind me pulls to the other lane, accelerates past me, pulls back into our lane, and the two of us sit in line at the stoplight at the next intersection.
I’d be happy to drive 30 mph and 35 mph along this route. I just haven’t felt safe doing it. I learned that lesson when after Montana I moved to California. I had a strict personal code for driving the speed limit. I could have been killed driving 55 mph (the posted limit) on the 405 or the 101 in L.A. With cars passing me at anywhere from 65 mph to 80 mph, I was a hazard to the flow of traffic on a 12 lane interstate highway when I was in the far right lane driving the maximum allowable speed by law.
So now getting back to driverless cars. Every single one of them will be designed an built to go no faster than the posted speed limit. There isn’t a company in the world that will take on the liability for an accident by their car if it was determined that the car was exceeding the limit established by law. Riders won’t mind doing the speed limit because they will be doing other things from talking on their phone to clients and answering e-mails or drafting a report for work, or just watching a movie on their tablet. In fact they may like a few extra minutes to watch their program or get another e-mail sent out.
How are other drivers going to respond when they are in a residential neighborhood or on a two lane city street where there is no opportunity to pass and the car in front of them is driving exactly at the limit? I know I invoke road rage in the drivers around me. I have seen other drivers when I ride with them and they react to the “Sunday driver” in front of them who is doing the speed limit or just a little bit faster.
Driverless cars, like all new technology will start with a small group of early adopters. It will take years to gain momentum. It will be decades before there is a majority of them on the road. Just as there are horses and buggies out there today and classic cars on the road, we will never get rid of car drivers. What will this transition period look like? Are we ready to share the road with cars that cannot by design exceed the speed limit?
I’m sure Google has done testing in L.A. Having been on the Interstates there, I would be very interested to know what the experience was like for the backup driver and for the other cars around it. Maybe the Google car and other driverless cars will be smart enough to get off the Interstate to avoid the traffic jam or accident ahead which is ever present on the highways there. It probably will be much more efficient at navigating the low roads and arrive before all of those cars with drivers stuck in a single route to their destination.
