Here is food for thought. How compatible will old cars be if they do this? They are already planning on obsoleting every TV out there in a few years. Now classic cars will have a problem.
Cars talk to roads
Cars talk to roads
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Re: Intelligent Roads - where will our cars be?
Mike, if we keep thinkng what MIGHT happen in the future, we'll go crazy. I'm just as guilty as the next guy. All we can do is enjoy the moment and leave the future to the future. As far as intelligent highways, we can't even fix potholes in today's roads let alone build nationwide networks of electronic roads. Don't sweat it.
Don -
Yeah, What he said... *NM*
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Re: Intelligent Roads - where will our cars be?
In the '60s, they wanted cleaner air and emission controls. We had no way to test at the time, but they still built them. In some places, it was nearly 20 years before they had testing facilities, but they had the emission controls since 1968 or 1966 if you were in Kalifornia.
In 1974, they started full-scale use of unleaded fuel, and in a few years, they dropped all the high octane fuels, even though many cars used it. If you needed it, tough. Your old car was just obsolete.
In the last decade, there have been attempts to rescind the emission testing for the older emissions cars since the parts are unavailable to comply with the law. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, and even some times they did but they don't anymore.
They make not be able to fix the potholes, but they tax you for driving on the road as though they did.
They freely change your driver's license privileges with whatever they decide is good at the time, and you lose or gain and sometimes both without any say.
And these intelligent highways are a safety issue. You know how easily that will pass into law. 85 mph speedometers. Seat belt laws. Child restaints and criminal penalties for those who ignore. Helmet laws. Air bags. and on and on.
There is more chance of something like that happening than you think. The old sci-fi and Popular Science ideas of wires in the roads are an infrastructure that could never be afforded, but with the Internet and wireless communications, all you need are some transponders along the road, in the cars, and a computer network to achieve tracking of each and every car out there. GM's On-Star already does much of it. Motorola's Iridium satelite system is just sitting there waiting for a use.
With a target of 6 to 10 years, it could quite easily happen.Comment
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Re: Intelligent Roads - where will our cars be?
Ha, Are you kidding? The DOT building something intelligent? It aint possible.Comment
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Re: Intelligent Roads - where will our cars be?
Thousands of product liability lawyers are just salivating at the thought of "intelligent cars" that suddenly go "stupid" and crash; ain't gonna happen in our lifetime (or in our kids' lifetime either).Comment
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