DVLA Over 70 Eye Tests

[Valvebloke]

... Very few vehicles seem to maintain a safe distance from each other wherever they are driving, but it is worse on the motorways because of the far higher speeds - often well-above the speed limit ...

There is 'an inconvenient truth'* here. Our most dangerous roads are those which are heavily congested (I live very close to the infamous A34). They are congested simply because the traffic  demand exceeds the road's capacity. Both demand and capacity are measured in vehicles per hour. Here's the inconvenient bit:

Vehicles per hour = Vehicles per mile X Miles per hour

If we leave bigger gaps then 'Vehicles per mile' goes down, so capacity goes down and congestion gets worse. If we force people to drive more slowly then 'Miles per hour' goes down and congestion gets worse. We might wish these things weren't true. But they are.

Making congestion worse is not a solution to the problem. The solution to the problem is to raise capacity or to reduce demand or both.

A huge and rarely-mentioned advantage of driverless cars is that whatever control system is in charge of them will, on roads where junctions are widely-spaced, be able to lock them closely together in 'trains'. This will reduce fuel consumption a little but it will increase road capacity a great deal by increasing 'Vehicles per mile'. As someone who's had to spend too long in fear-induced accelerate/brake traffic I'm really looking forward to this.

VB

*Something that we wish wasn't true, but is.