We all know the situation: you're happily making your way along a reasonably clear stretch of motorway (freeway for our friends across the pond), when suddenly your progress is impeded by a numbskull in the outside lane, poodling along and obstructing the flow of traffic instead of pulling across into the next lane like the Highway Code says. Well, with Aggressive Cruise Control (ACC), your problems could be solved. Intelligent Cruise Control is definitely baked; I don't know if it's actually available to Joe Public yet but it's being worked on as we speak (see link below). This will, as well as maintaining a steady speed, slow down according to proximity of the vehicle in front. I propose that, instead of slowing down and maintaining a safe distance, the ACC moves nearer to the (slow) car in front, and flashes it's headlights, hopefully encouraging the driver in front to move over... similarly, when you're minding your own business and some OTHER numbskull is sitting right on your bumper (fender for our friends across the pond), the ACC flashes your brake-lights, encouraging said numbskull to slow down and leave a bigger gap. I'm not sure as I go to press about what would happen if a car equipped with ACC travelling at 90 mph comes up behind another ACC-equipped car travelling at 65...-- kmlabs, May 21 2004 Google results for intelligent cruise control http://www.google.c...t+cruise+control%22plenty of sites to check out [kmlabs, Oct 04 2004] (I cannot, from your references, figure out on which side of the pond you reside. Here, we say freeway and bumper.)
I do find it rather telling that "intelligent" cruise control is distinctly differentiated from "agressive" cruise control.-- Gromit, May 21 2004 motorway, bumper and Highway Code make it the eastern side of the pond surely!-- po, May 21 2004 pond=ocean for those of us on the other side of the -well you know.-- xclamp, May 21 2004 Just to clear up confusion, I'm in li'l ol' England... (oops - only my second post, sorry).-- kmlabs, May 21 2004 Pond? There's a pond?-- zigness, May 21 2004 They're referring to the cold pond. There's another one, but much warmer, where I live.-- normzone, May 21 2004 "(fender for our friends across the pond)" is the one that made me mention it 'cause on this side of the pond we also say bumper. That is, if you're talking about the two things at the front and rear of the car which are there, at least ostensibly, to absorb impact in the event of a collision.-- Gromit, May 21 2004 //I'm not sure as I go to press about what would happen if a car equipped with ACC travelling at 90 mph comes up behind another ACC-equipped car travelling at 65...//
I'd imagine that it would just end up as a lightshow, unless there were some communication to the driver of the slower car requesting that he/she move over and let the faster car pass.
Also, your use of mph instead of kph seems to conflict with your assertion of being on the east side of the pond. Also, which lane is the outside lane? I infer from the context that it's the fast lane, but I always considered the inside lane to be the fast lane. (closest to the freeway divider, farthest from the entrance ramps)-- Freefall, May 21 2004 That would be the logical assumption. But for some bizarre reason in England the lane that is nearest to the middle of the motorway is called the outside lane.-- spacemoggy, May 22 2004 Last time I was in Britain, the European community hadn't convinced them to change to Km. I'm not sure about pints-- Ling, May 22 2004 We use mph here, kph are just strange numbers on the speedometer (travel at 60mph and say to small kids "look, I'm doing 100!"), we use pints in pubs for beer, but kilos and grams in shops for fruit, vegetables, etc - and litres for things like milk, fruit juice... figure that one out? The outside lane is the one nearest the central reservation (or freeway divider). Apologies for the confusion about bumpers/fenders etc, also...-- kmlabs, May 24 2004 "Fender bender" only applies to accidents involving guitar delivery vehicles. ;-)
Maybe because "fender bender" rhymes, I guess. Fenders are often bent in an accident. But, yeah, it's not the most logical colloquialism.
We could discuss the linguistic disparity all day, but that's a horse of a different color.-- Gromit, May 24 2004 <off topic> Tabs funnily enough all road signs must be in imperial, one council got taken to court over this and if memory serves it was a council that had previously taken legal action against a market trader who sold bananas by the pound.</off topic>
The problem you may have is getting people overtaking on the inside.-- engineer1, May 24 2004 random, halfbakery