Should a driver be fined for reading whilst driving with radar cruise control?

The day is coming I believe. Also one must ponder how insurance rates will be set; will the new drive itself car be classified as a learner and pay more... or an experienced safer driver because it's focus is only upon driving, and not reading the morning paper?

I don't think you are wrong GC.

Roland

 

I'd say that you need to be paying attention until there are fully driverless cars. I can see your point on the technology, but I think that at the moment you still need to be in a position to react to anything unexpected, and if you're reading, you're not only not going to have your eyes off of the road, but you're not going to be in a driving frame of mind.

Also, I think that Roy 'Chubby" Brown should be heavily fined - imprisoned, in fact, tortured, and maybe even executed - simply for being Roy "Chubby" Brown and for being possibly the least funny person in Britain. He was always performing on the pier when I was a kid, and his stupid grinning face on a poster above the entrance annoyed the s--t out of me. Grrr.

 

I reckon they need to be fully autonomous before you can travel while reading: you'd need to be able to just program in the destination and leave the car to it. Until then, I really don't think lane-departure warnings and radar cruise control are enough: you wouldn't be able to react to some numpty leaving their lane, or anything like that.

When they are fully autonomous, though, it'll be great. I'm looking forward to getting hammered, and not having to get a taxi home. To be able to fall into the car and go "My house" will be fantastic.

 

I wonder if it will be possible to program my Google iCar in the way I want. "Drive me home, please, but if you see Roy "Chubby" Brown walking along the pavement, veer up onto the kerb and run him over." That would be cool.

 

depends on what newspaper he was reading...

 

You are dead wrong!!!

 

but say you pick up some fish and chips, you're driving along, happily munching away, and an article on the side catches your attention...

 

A driver should absolutely NOT be fined for reading or texting while driving.
They should lose their license to drive!

AFAIC, it's worse than drink driving (we call it 'drunk driving') because you can make at lease a weak case that somebody who is snot-slinging, knee-walking drunk may not realize that they're completely disregarding the safety of the other people on the road because their higher brain function is impaired.

Sober people reading the Daily Mail while they're driving have no such excuse.

 

You are right. They should lose their license. It just makes me cringe when I stop at a traffic light and look in my rear view mirror and see an idiot texting AND THE CAR STARTS CREEPING TOWARDS MY REAR END and we all know that happens several times when we go out for just a short drive. These people are zombies.

 

At the moment, it is still very simple:

WE CONSUMERS DON'T YET HAVE SELF-DRIVING CARS.

Radar cruise control and lane assist are merely driver assists, and handle only the easy situations. They can't yet handle the hard situations. They don't have full control of the vehicle, and cannot fully provide for occupant and non-occupant safety in all traffic conditions.

Self driving cars do exist, as research projects. But what we can buy today falls far far short of those.

 

I am thinking self-driving cars are a terrorist dream. Put the man-sized bomb in the driver seat and voila.

Bob Wilson

 

LOL, mcglaghlin group was talking about this last night. even eleonor clift didn't like the idea. never saw her agree with pat buchanen before. although i must say, it's not that difficult to find a terrorist willing to blow herself up.

 

I had the same thought when I saw the Amazon and pizza delivery copters. A grenade or Claymore would make a heck of a mess. Still, if there is comic who needs to bomb . . .

Bob Wilson

 

Never heard that aspect mentioned but you certainly have a very good point. Now that you mentioned the terrorist aspect of it those things would be an absolute disaster. A big time security problem.

 

Don't see how it would be any worse than now, since there seems to be no shortage of people willing drive in car bombs or even strap one on. A self driving one can even be safer by having exclusion zones where one can not enter without a passenger.

 

probably was reading Clarkson article