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The UK is paving the way for driverless cars on the road as upcoming changes to the highway code are due to allow for vehicles without steering wheels or driver controls. UK Science Minister, David Willets, admits that the current highway code is inadequate for robotic vehicles but that should change soon.
These changes aren't specifically aimed at Google's new cars as according to Willets, the UK is a major leader in driverless car technology and the current British models are cheaper than Google's. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Willets said: “There is British technology, and it's a lot cheaper than the Google technology. We are one of the world leaders in this.”
However, Google's own cars have notched up more test miles: “But whereas the Google car, they have notched up more miles, so we have got to ensure that the British has its own opportunity to get tested in a wider range of environments and that's what we are working on with the department for transport.”
Currently Oxford University is developing bolt on devices which will allow for the driverless operation of some cars. At the moment the prototypes cost around £5000 but when it's finished it will cost closer to £100.
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KitGuru Says: It's good to see that the UK government is taking a forward thinking approach to driverless cars. Maybe we'll see more test driving units on the roads soon.
Yeah, who is going to trust a 100 quid computer to drive you when you can “rent” the state-of-the-art system provided diversity connectivity is provided to the car ?. People would like to have “proven” technology rather than claimed best-in-class. At the same time, we also want car computer systems to hand-over to the dirver if the conditions it deemed is unfavourable to guarantee safety in driving. ie broken sensors or inaccurate sensor readings etc. We cannot assume each and every component is working fine in order to drive the car.