The future of motorcycles on the street...? (a discussion)

[Ninja Bob]

I'm not sure whether or how much this topic has been addressed. But every now and then I think about motorcycles' role in the imminent era of self-driving cars, or autonomous cars.

As for the cars themselves; I personally welcome the whole thing. Less stress from driving. A network to orchestrate traffic better than we could ever dream. Virtual elimination of automobile related accidents. The whole nine yards.

There will be a transitional period where autonomous cars will coexist with human piloted machines. Motorcycles will still be practical at this point. Autonomous cars will not yet rely on a hive-like network. They'll mainly rely on internal sensors and devices.

But eventually, the infrastructure will be developed to specifically cater to the autonomous system. For perfectly choreographed traffic, you can't have humans muckin it up. Whether they're in a cage or on a bike.

Granted, rural areas will still exist and the autonomous infrastructure would largely remain in urban areas, and along only the most important interstates. But that still leaves the urban rider like myself a little trapped.

Talking points:

• How do you see autonomous cars entering the scene, and how do you feel it will effect us bikers?
• Will motorcycles be banned from cities and major roadways?
• Do we care?
• Is the track enough to keep you happy?
• Big brother, conspiracies, remotely controlled "car accident" assassinations, etc. Yeah, that's fine. Let's hear it.

[NevadaWolf]

Some good points raised and one I'd like to hear others opinion on.

Not too long ago, Chris asked a similar question regarding all the new tech in cars and if they would be able to mesh easily with bikes on the road. Some good points raised here too. https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=164810

[csmith12]

^^^ link above.

Is the track enough to keep you happy? No, there is more to riding than speed.
Big Brother? Yes... he is always watching.

[Ninja Bob]

Originally Posted by @NevadaWolf

I would raise this counter question. If such a system came out in new cars that does enable them to drive with no human input, would there not also be a system that would be built into cars (or motorcycles) that broadcasts their own location and allow the cars on the road to "talk" to each other to ensure every vehicle knows where every other nearby vehicle is? Could such a system be retrofitted to the most commonly produced bikes to send out a signal to communicate with other computers in the region with this conversation?

(Random shouting) "I'm a motorcycle!"
(Car) I "hear" you and "see" you, but I don't recognize you.
(M) I'm a 2012 Kawasaki Ninja, Overall length 82.1 in. Overall width 28.1 in. Overall height 43.7 in.
(C) My sensors confirm that data.

And then it proceeds as if it was an object like any other, detecting movement (direction and speed) and determining appropriate behavior.

This is particularly logical and hope-giving. I imagine it would be fairly useful/common in that transitional period I mentioned.

I imagine motorcycles of the future are totally capable of being fitted with several features we already implement on cars today. Blind spot detection, lane keeping, and whatever you call it that applies the ABS if you're about to rear end someone. Maybe they'll allow these semi-autonomous motorcycles on the road with the fully autonomous cages. I dunno.

[alex.s]

i don't think you will ever see automated motorcycles. seems like an oxymoron to me. cars for sure. but there are plenty of people who still want to be in control of their vehicle and it will be a long time before anyone makes a law mandating that you need a robot to drive for you if you want to be on a taxpayer-funded road. but i can definitely see it happening far out in the future. i think it would be at least 50 years at least though. as for motorcycles... it is purely a pleasure vehicle. and there are laws about grandfathering vehicles in and stuff. maybe in the future they will be much more expensive because of heavy regulations but i doubt you will ever see motorcycles banned from public roads.


there is another side to all this though. creating a mesh network for the cars to share navigation/traffic stuff and regulate flows better means someone can hack your car. (most cars with on-star can actually be hacked currently, but the controls available are pretty minor... unlock doors... stop engine... simple stuff only typically.) but what happens when some asshole releases a virus that hacks all the throttles to pin at 100%? just a thought.

[csmith12]

Originally Posted by alex.s

what happens when some asshole releases a virus that hacks all the throttles to pin at 100%? just a thought.

Toyota tried this already on the Prius. lol Believe it or not, one was clocked at 94mph, which broke Toyota's top speed estimates of 88mph. Interestingly enough, Toyota didn't really care about the stuck accelerator problem, they only cared that it go 37.6mpg at 94mph.

[Ninja Bob]

Originally Posted by alex.s

there is another side to all this though. creating a mesh network for the cars to share navigation/traffic stuff and regulate flows better means someone can hack your car. (most cars with on-star can actually be hacked currently, but the controls available are pretty minor... unlock doors... stop engine... simple stuff only typically.) but what happens when some asshole releases a virus that hacks all the throttles to pin at 100%? just a thought.

I think creating a physical emergency disconnect could easy prevent such chaos. All "drivers" would need to still pass a drivers test for basic maneuverability, braking, and knowing where the heck that manual override is.

[adouglas]

As with many such things, the U.S. will lag far behind in implementation. I don't see our highway network going away in the foreseeable future.

The big issue is that this country is large. Even countries that are bigger than we are actually have smaller regions of high development... consider Russia, the largest country on Earth. We have interstates spanning the entire U.S., coast to coast and border to border. They don't have anything remotely like that. Same with China, Canada, etc. etc. Lots of space, not a lot of development. Intensely developed countries where massive infrastructure projects make sense tend to be much smaller, which makes the projects more realistic. IIRC Israel put in a nationwide EV charging network a few years ago. Can't happen here... too costly.

We point to things like France's TGV and how it's so much better than Amtrak, but the catch is that our rail network is huge by comparison. The result is that it's not economically feasible for us to implement enormous infrastructure projects like this.

There's also our utterly dysfunctional political process, which is really good at finding reasons NOT to do things.

So:

We may see projects like the OP envisions in isolated areas, but never on a national scale. I imagine that they could spring up like HOV lanes near major urban areas... a separate, parallel road network built alongside the interstates. For that matter, they could refit existing HOV lanes. Bikes wouldn't fit there. But the regular roads will have to remain.

Far more likely is that autonomous technology will be the "next big thing" in the luxury market and be completely internal to the individual vehicle. Over time it'll filter downwards (as all automotive technologies tend to do), but never in a form that completely excludes human operators.

We're already seeing backup cameras in economy cars. Next it'll be adaptive cruise control and blind spot detection.

The point where self-driving cars outnumber operator-driven cars is a long way off IMHO.