As a cyclist I'm very aware of bad drivers - distracted ones including the dreaded telephone obsessed idiots, ones who drive stupidly fast in tight places because they are so sadly trying to please their boss, selfish ones whose own thrills are more important than someone else's life... but I don't think steer by wire will solve that!
Anyway, steer by wire is not really the same thing as computer assisted steering as you seem to be suggesting. You can have one or the other or both or none. The only connection is that both systems need to be able to steer using a motor. Steer by wire just means there is no physical connection between the steering wheel and the steering mechanism of the road wheels.
You put mechanical above electrical/logical. Steer by wire is probably one of the first steps to computer assisted steering/driving.
Well, hmm, I had an electrical parking brake in my previous car (does a Scirocco also has this? Maybe, seems as an option)... And it really sucked. In a way that it was throwing out more error messages then that it actually was working. Pretty scary if you need to use an handbrake in an emergency situation.
Having moved to a rural part of England I am very fortunate to have loads of bridleways and byways around here to do mountain biking. Definitely my favourite if it hasn't been raining too much. Road riding is useful to keep up the training when it gets too muddy... and I still have to ride the MTB on road to get to the off road places!
To be fair I would like to say that most car drivers are considerate and not hell bent on speed. But there are enough nuts around to give me a scare quite often and quite a few people who are maybe half way there, not lunatics but just don't seem to realise that easing up off the throttle for a few seconds and giving a wider gap when passing really helps.
Agreed, computer assisted steering is definitely made easier by steer by wire. But only a little, since motorising the steering system is basically the least of their problems.
On that subject I can understand computer controlled driving on roads with clearly defined lanes (Google cars or whatever) but it'll be a long time before they can get safely around the sort of roads we have around here, which are much narrower than two cars and have a fuzzy edge so timing, stopping, cooperation and use of passing places is needed to get around. And passing a bike for example often depends on some kind of coordination and cooperation with the cyclist. I can imagine a computer controlled car just getting completely stuck if there is a dog walker in the road, even if the dog walker pulls into the side. And how much should you brush against that hedge... computers can't make that kind of judgement at all and probably not for many years.
Scawen, I can't PM you so forgive the off topic introjection, but do you check the programmer forum anymore? Could you direct your attention too [RFC] InSim Language Information
