Robotic road train could change commuting as we know it

I think we all know that most of us waste a lot of quality work time driving to and fro to work each day. To make matters worse, some of us decide to “use the time better” by talking on the cell phone or doing other mobile applications that lead to distracted driving accidents.

There is a lot of work on making a driverless car, and the image that you see here is a different idea. What you are looking at here are robotic road trains, and it is a way to get ordinary cars grouped together like train cars in a wireless configuration.

I know that you can’t really read the fine print on the image, but the concept works by having a lead vehicle traveling down the highway, and then other cars join up by entering their destination. From there, six to eight cars will be guided wirelessly by the leader, and they can sit comfortably and do anything they want. Heck, they could probably even sleep. Once the driver/passenger approaches their destination, they can simply break off from the train and go on their way.

I’m sure that you can see a lot drawbacks to this. Like what if the wireless driving program malfunctions, or what if a car in the train runs out of gas. Yes, we are a long way from establishing one of these convoy trains along the road. I would like to see a dry run on a major highway, though.

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