Haulage and motoring groups were raising concerns this morning over driverless lorry tests on motorways, citing the results of the ongoing driverless country test.
Transport Really Research has won the contract from government to carry out tests of ‘platoons’ of driverless lorries on major British roads by the end of the year.
But head of BA, Ms Constance Driver, gave voice to the anxieties the looming experiment was causing,
“We have a demand to test driverless lorries coming from a government that has had no perceptible driver since June 8th, and arguably since 2015 when David Cameron decided to blindfold himself and drive at top speed through as many town centres as he could manage before crashing. This doesn’t bode well.”
Head of communications for the TAC, Stephanie Boding, also weighed into the debate,
“Other countries have tested this method with reasonable success. Japan and the USA for example. But the UK is very different. The Japanese government actually attempts to plan for the future and foresee the possible outcomes of its decisions. The USA has very large roads that go for long distances without anyone being able to turn off, , which mirror their government in an interesting way. We have the exact opposite conditions to Japan in the United Kingdom with no visible possibility of immediate change looming large in our rear view.”
Indeed, many of the concerns raised appear to be the fact that the UK is already driving in reverse in many policy areas and it’s not certain if the government will be looking in the right direction when the tests occur.
Government attempted to ease concerns with Transport Minister Paul Maynot stating,
“To say there is no driver is simply unfair. Ms May is showing a clear ability to u turn in difficult circumstances and following on from her lead we’ll have fleets of lorries circling the country constantly changing direction in a strong and stable way in no time.”
