Platoons of autonomously controlled lorries travelling on motorways may one day also include driverless cars, a transport conference heard on Thursday.

 

Haulage company DAF Truck’s managing director Ray Ashworth said: “If we are saying let’s get trucks platooning why not say the trucks can lead and cars can follow? The driver of the first truck could be the only person driving a whole train of trucks and cars. It’s a thought for the future.”

 

But the idea of mixing autonomous cars and trucks did not impress the RAC Foundation’s director Steve Gooding, who provided a response. “Being stuck in the middle of a platoon of great big trucks is not a good idea and we need to get right away from it,” he said.

 

Steve Gooding added that he “loathes and detests” the concept of partially autonomous cars, which may be unable to cope with a difficult situation and hand back control to the driver when a vehicle is travelling at up to 70MPH.

 

He also pointed out that connectivity associated with modern and future vehicles could represent “a double edged sword”. “I don’t want people who are in command of a vehicle to be invited to engage in email, texting or anything else. I want them to focus on the road.”

 

Steve Gooding also remarked that vehicles are moving towards a point where “mechanical engineering takes second place to clever coding, systems and IT that will make these vehicles work”. In light of this the UK needs to start liaising with colleagues in Europe about type approval of vehicles to check they are roadworthy, he said.

 

“I have this nightmare vision that in two years Elon Musk (of Tesla cars) will turn up at 10 Downing Street and say he wants this country to be the place to showcase his driverless cars to the world. The Prime Minister might say that is brilliant - and we will have to test the road worthiness of these vehicles in a fortnight. Let’s start thinking about this now.”

 

Last Thursday’s conference was titled ‘Next steps for intelligent mobility” and was hosted by the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum.

 

(Photo: Highways England)