Synchronized Driving

You've heard of synchronized swimming - but what about synchronized driving? Tune in to learn more about the complex (and dangerous) techniques required to perform multi-car stunts, with cars often mere inches away.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. Hello everyone,
Welcome to the show. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. As always,
we are joined by our super producer, Noel Hundai Brown
and I and by you as well, ladies and gentlemen

(00:24):
that makes this car stuff. Car stuff. Now, wait a
second with I thought we were gonna go with the
Sync for the name. We did originally full disclosure when
we first started the show, I did give Noel the
honorable nickname Noel in Sync Brown. Well, there's a lot
of jokes to be made there, of course. Yeah. Yeah,
boy band jokes, many of them, lots of them. Yeah,

(00:46):
I almost preferred I don't know what's Uh, Hunta is good,
Hundai is good, hun is good. In Sync I think
was your best. It has a little swagger. Yeah, maybe
we'll find another one as we go through here. Today
we go ahead. Quick question. Yeah, so you have a
daughter and uh, did she ever have the boy band phase? No, no,
you lucked out. She has not. She's she's definitely like

(01:08):
pop music and on Top fourty type stuff. But um,
but now I never got into the boy band thing,
and I don't know if that was maybe just because
that was like the real popularity of that was when
she was much much younger, and maybe they just never
caught on with her. You know, growing up, a lot
of my friends who were girls went through a boy
band phase. And now what I've noticed is that some

(01:30):
of those groups got back together and went on reunion
tours or something. And my friends who were about my
age are twitter painted about this stuff. They love it.
They go to these concerts. Really they didn't have enough
of the initial go around, how so they go back
for more, spend hundreds of dollars tickets. And I was
asking what the appeal of this was, because it's not

(01:51):
a world that I ever lived in. And one of
the things that really stuck out they said, well, you know,
they each have their own personality. He's there's like the
bad guy, and then there's the heart drob and the
quiet one. And I said, yes, but it seems as
though they're all the same four to five characters, aren't they.

(02:11):
It's a big formula, right and there. You know, my
friends like this were aware of it. But then they
also said, well, it's not just the singing or the
or the music itself. It's a whole image, and one
of the things that they really liked was the choreography,
the dance moves that these people would make. No you know,
the idea of this sort of overall performance dates back

(02:35):
for a while. Probably the closest I ever got to
liking a boy band would be when I was a kid.
My parents had a Monkey's record, you know, and I
thought the Monkeys were cool when I was a kid.
You can't really call that a boy band, though, because
that means that there are so many bands across across
all of you know, spanning all of music that would

(02:56):
be considered boy bands. Then that's a good point. But
I think what we're talking about is like the ones
that come out, they don't really play instruments. They just
think if if they sing, and they don't write their
own songs, and apparently they lip sync a lot. It
was disappointed to learn that the Monkeys neither wrote their
own songs nor sync lives. That's one of those Yeah,
that is a disappointment when you learned that. Yeah, but

(03:17):
by but it is not for uh, it's not for nothing,
ladies and gentlemen, that we're giving our super producer the
name in sync and it's not related to boy bands,
but by way of an out of left field amazing
save segue, one thing that boy bands have in common
with today's topic is synchronization. Yeah, choreography, right, I mean

(03:41):
it's a it's it's well planned, well thought out, concise,
very very precise in all aspects. But you know what,
can we can we divert from this for just one yeah? Yeah,
oh yeah, we have an important announcement. We will get
to this topic. I promise we're gonna quit talking about bands.
We're gonna move on to our our our daily topic.
But I do want to talk about something else that's
a really important to us into the show and to

(04:01):
one of our listeners it should be. I think it's
important to all of our listeners. Really a long time listener,
a good friend of the show. His name is Glenn Beck.
And like Glenn and Glenn is is doing another rally again,
another charity rally, and he's doing it through the same
group and it is through Rally North America once again,
and this time it is the Big Sky Rally. And

(04:22):
this is five day event that's happening in July from
July eleven to July and it starts out in Billings, Montana,
goes through Big Sky Montana, Great Falls, Montana, Kellogg, Idaho, Kennewick, Washington,
and then ends in Portland, Oregon. And along the way
they're gonna have like auctions and they're gonna go to
a couple of racing venues. They're gonna do a drag
drag racing event or a drag strip um activity I

(04:45):
suppose in like an evening there um in I think
that's an act in Montana at the Yellowstone Drag Strip.
And then in Portland, Uh, they're gonna go to the
Portland International Raceway for the conclusion of the whole thing.
So that's gonna be really really cool. And what this
is all about really is about the charity. So this
year's current benefactor is Camp Sunshine, and this is something

(05:06):
that they have actually rallied for in the past. Um,
it's a it's a definitely a worthy charity. And I'll
just read you a little bit from Glenn's note that
he writes to every that he wrote to us. He
says this July will be joining over one hundred and
fifty other charity minded auto enthusiast in Villain's Montana for
five days scavenger hunt on wheels through the Pacific Northwest.
Sounds like fun, doesn't it. It's all to help Camp

(05:28):
Sunshine in their mission to provide aid for families of
children with life threatening illnesses. I'll be participating as Team
Limber of course. Let go Team Limber uh in my
two thousand six legend Lime Mustang g T and I
will continue to use the alter ego for this race
of her Rally brother of Bailey's team. It's to honor

(05:48):
a family of a little girl with a very rare
blood disorders. And I've I've seen his car with with
Bailey's team, you know the logos for that. It's it's
really cool. He's kept it on there that whole time.
And um, let's see, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you
I've got a link here that we can you know,
post on our Facebook and Twitter as as the time approaches,
maybe the coincide with the release of this, but Glenn's

(06:09):
you know, we'll be accepting donations of course, and I'll
be there to donate as well. But again, these all
go directly to Camp Sunshine, and they don't, he says.
Rally North America doesn't see a penny. I don't see
a penny myself. It all goes to the charity itself,
so it's it's great, he says, So please give if
you can, give generously. If you can, we'd really appreciate it.
And you know, go there if you feel like it.

(06:29):
Check it out. Check out Raley North America's site. It's
it's Raley north America dot com. Send us some photos
if you go. Absolutely, we've had listeners that have met
these guys for lunch somewhere or maybe you know, know
knew that they were going to the dragstrips, so they
go there. I did that. I met up with a
lot of these people, met you know, my talk with them. Yeah,
exactly up in Athens and um along the way. Some
people have you know, sent us photographs of you know,

(06:51):
the Rally cars passing their their place of business or
the school. Really really cool. And one last quick thing,
I know that this has happened in July. We're gonna
releases pretty soon. Here, we're gonna publish this, he writes
a ps Here on the note, it says Rally North
America has is issued a challenge to US teams that
raise five dollars in donations before the end of April
get a special Camp Sunshine T shirt and the top

(07:14):
fundraisers get a front get a spot at the front
of the grid for each day's start. He says, I've
got to have that T shirt and I gotta get
one from my navigator too, so uh consider that too.
And again I'll post a link if you want to
go there and check out it's it's definitely worthwhile cause
please look into it. And again Glenn stand up guy. Yeah,
check out the the group and the charity, anything you

(07:34):
wanted to. It's all very worthwhile. Yeah, we assure you.
Glenn Beck is one of the good guys and every
time that he does a rally it is for it
is for a worthwhile cause. Absolutely so if you want to,
if you want to learn more about it, if you'd
like to donate, you can check out our Facebook and
Twitter where we are car Stuff HSW for more information

(07:56):
on that. And also I think we gotta we have
a few pig WHI is a team linber up on
the Facebook, right, Yeah, we do. And he's you know,
of course liked on the page so he can find
it that way. And he's always commenting on stuff we
post anyway, so you can get in contact with him
that way too. But again, this link that I'm gonna
post will go directly to his page, so he'll get
credit for it. Then that's a that's kind of what
we're looking for here on show. Yeah, and again thank

(08:19):
you Glenn for thank you for doing this, and thank
you for giving us an opportunity to let everyone else
know about it. Today's topic synchronized driving, and it's it's
weird that it's weird that we somehow went on a
boy band tangent because we both know fairly little about it.

(08:40):
I know, I know almost nothing about it, right, I
assumed you would have some inside knowledge, and that was
my that was my assumption, just just for having a daughter.
But the the fascinating thing that we're getting to today
is and this is not to in any way dintigrade
human ooreography, but I feel like it's an order of

(09:04):
magnitude more impressive when you're synchronized in UH in an automobile.
And we started talking about this just last week before
we went to air. This is a it would be
accurate to call it as a specialization in the category
of stunt or precision driving. And oftentimes when you see

(09:28):
you know, um, I guess displays of this. You know,
whether it's done at a racetrack on the main stretch,
you know, as part of like the the ceremony leading
up to the race for an exhibition, or you see
it in a commercial or whatever. A lot of times
you'll find that these are Hollywood stunt drivers that that
are called in to do this because they know car control,
they're very good at precision work. And if they're not Hollywood,

(09:48):
then they're they're skilled and trained elsewhere in the same
way that at the Hollywood stunt driver would be right,
there's an overlap there for sure. Absolutely yeah, these are
these are trained professionals. So you can go on YouTube
now and find a couple of different clips of some
extraordinarily impressive, uh at times heart stopping precision driving stunts

(10:13):
with teams of what even as many as twelve cars
doing a proximity driving, doing crazy reverse three sixty turns,
weaving in and out of different obstacles, lots of precision
drifting or the drifting simultaneously. And I'm not talking about
the drifting events you know, like Formula D or anything

(10:34):
I mean, I'm talking about um, you know, like for
car commercials or for um promotional pieces for the company,
for the manufacturer, maybe where you know, they're on a
racetrack somewhere and they're just having fun. Like there's a
bunch of you know, Lexus cars. They'll bring out like
the the you know, the l F A Spider, or
they'll bring out you know, the there RCF coops and
they'll run them around the Fuji Speedway for a while

(10:55):
and have them drift and do just amazing things. You
know that the car control is so impressive in these
in these displays, it's it's just unbelievable. You have to
see it to believe it really in a lot of cases,
and what's need is that every time you look at
a different one, because there's a bunch of them online,
you can search for a lot of different things to
get this all to come out. Every one of them
is different in some way. They don't all do the

(11:16):
same exact tricks, and that's what makes it interesting. There's
always something new, something unique, something crazy that they show
you that you just you almost you have to back
up and watch that again because you can't believe it's
really happening, and you can tell these teams came up
with these techniques themselves or this application of these techniques.
This is of course the moment where we should probably

(11:37):
say don't try this at home, because once you, once
you see the kind of driving that we're talking about,
even if you're familiar with our earlier work on stunt
drivers right stunt driving schools, they might make it look easy,
but do not be deceived. Yeah, you know what, I
can tell you one if you want to look at

(11:57):
one clip that will show you that maybe you shouldn't
try this. There is a there's a synchronized Okay, let's
put it this way. You go to the top tier
website and search for search for this an AMG display
from South America and I'm sorry, sorry South Africa. And
it's it's really I mean, it's described as what happens
when synchronized driving goes wrong. And it's from the announcer's

(12:20):
box and you can hear the announcer and you see
these cars headed opposite directions on the racetrack. They're supposed
to weave in and out of each other, two from
each side. They're AMG cars, beautiful cars. The last two
just smash right into each other a near head on,
not quite, but you can tell there's some serious damage.
Puts an immediate end to the display. Um. It's it's
shocking when you see it because you know that these

(12:41):
they've practiced this so many times. You know that, you
know they've they've practiced probably in an open parking lot somewhere,
but but it's been practiced, and in front of the
crowd when it really counted, that's when it kind of
fell apart. And that can happen. Oh man, I don't
know how it doesn't happen more often with some of
the other ones that I saw. I mean, it's a
matter of milliseconds. Yeah, really is, because when you get
to the groups that are a dozen or more cars,

(13:02):
like you were talking about, that's where you're it just
bends the mind. You know, how much how much of
that they have to remember at all times because their
view is completely different from our view up in the
stands or you know, from the camera tower. Uh, their
view is a lot different on the ground and to
kind of put that all together in your head and
remember that you go left at this time, right at
that time, and even though you can see a car there.

(13:24):
Now you aim for the spot and you know, all
that stuff is really really tricky. So I would like
to start this conversation with with one of my favorite
Precisions stunt driving teams to watch, which was the Hyundai
Precisions Stunt Driving Team. The amazing thing about these drivers

(13:46):
is the following one. They knew every trick in the
book two they were They were known for this the
same way that the Harlem Globe Trotters were known for
the amazing tricks they could pull with the basketball. Isn't
this weird that that Hyundai had their own precision driving team?
When when do you think this was the eighties or nineties?

(14:08):
I know they were. They were still doing some shows
in two thousand two. Oh no kiddings, so they were
on for a long long time. The cars that I
saw that, you know, a dozen or so or fifteen
or whatever it was cars, Um, you know, they're red
white sedans. I think they were nothing really spectacular, but
it was whatever Hundai was offering at the time. That's
my favorite. That's the third part. The most impressive part

(14:29):
to me is that they're not they're not highly customized
stunt cars. These are like a Launchras and Sonatas and
the okay, yeah, front wheel drive the company's products. Right,
one of the most amazing moves, which is super dangerous
and insane. You have to see it to believe it,

(14:49):
is when after they do a bunch of proximity driving
where these folks are weaving the laundres together to a
ridiculously awesome soundtrack. By the way, there they formed the
single sinuous line where the cars are maybe six inches
apart at times. You saw that maybe, and then the

(15:10):
big the big finish or the one the most impressed
me rather is when a team with two guys in
the car drives just on the left wheels, so it's
just it's just driving on two wheels, passenger side, you know,
the right side up in the air, nearly vertical, not

(15:34):
quite but nearly close enough the vertical that you could
rest something on the side and it wouldn't fall off.
That's how that is. How precise this is. And then right,
that's already impressive, that's pretty dangerous. How could you do that?
And then uh tow up the stakes. The part that
really impressed me was the second driver is sitting in

(15:56):
the back and then as soon as the car gets vertical,
this guy pops out, takes out one tire and puts
it on the side of the vehicle, and then while
they're still driving vertically, he changes the back right tire,
doesn't drop a lug nat, the car never wavers, and
the car is moving the entire time. Mind you, Yeah,
pretty impressive. And then he just pops the other tire

(16:18):
back in, sits down and you think, wow, that's so impressive.
And then they keep driving. They do a couple of
turns and the dude comes back out with a with
a Hondai flag. It starts waving it. And I was
by that point, I was completely on board. I was like,
you earned that. What else has he got back there?
I know what what's next? Is he gonna take another car?
I feel like I've seen this imitated in real life

(16:40):
on you know what? What's that? Um? The in the
U A E. I guess maybe there's that yeah, yeah,
wid that giant wide um it almost looks like a
runway airport running. We've been into it. But it's a highway.
And he sees a lot of like horrific high speed
accidents on that road, I know it, but a lot
of stunt driving a lot of the young guys used
that for stunt driving of just their personal vehicles and

(17:00):
showing off. And so they'll goost ride the whip and
then they'll also go vertical and then they'll jump over
their buddies. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I've seen that, you know,
where people are sitting on the ground and they're and
they're right on two wheels right next to them, or
they do the thing with the tire like you said,
they take both you know, right side tires off if
through up in the air. It's really trust somebody, Yeah,
I mean, and this has just done you know, out

(17:22):
like just out in the open. It's not you know,
it's not um, you know, in some controlled environment like
these guys did with the Hundai thing. But yeah, these
these Hundai drivers are really something else to watch. I mean.
And again it's still strange that they're using like a
two wheel drive four door uh you know, um, just
their simple basic sedan, you know whatever it was. It's

(17:42):
really no no modifications at all. It's not anything like
a sports car or anything. It's just their their product.
And another one that did this to Ben there's a
second version of this from is Suzu and I don't
know if you saw the Susu ad or not, but
I don't even know if you can call it an ad.
It's more of a music video really that is Susie
put out And this would have been back on nine
in eighties. Again, I think just based on the way
the vehicle look but it's the Suzu Gemini and it's

(18:06):
probably a TV advertisement, but it's really really impressive and
they kind of up the ante with a lot of jumps,
uh you know, they do like ramp to ramp jumps
and things over over formations of cars that are driving
underneath the ramps. So it's really really cool and again
more drifting, you know, more um, you know, really really
precise driving in in that instance, it's just a really

(18:27):
cool thing to look up. It's it's called um Dancing
in Paris if you want to look it up. And
I think that's maybe one version of it. There's another
one that was like, I forget the name it. Maybe
we're like Romanian March or something. The music is different,
but it's the same driving. And Uzu still has a
precision driving team today the d Max. Really do they
oh no kidding? And I think I think I saw

(18:47):
one from Cadillac and Cadillac was at the Shanghai Grand
Prix track and I think it was kind of a
pre race activity thing. But there, of course, um you know,
precision driving their Cadillacs CTSV models and I don't know
exactly what year that was going down. Um, BMW's had
some commercials. Oh they did one. BMW did one that
I don't know if you saw it or not. It
was on a roundabout. Did you see that one? Okay,

(19:09):
this one is called BMW Epic drift Mob. Feet that's
a long title. I know you can probably just look
up BMW drift Mob. And what they do is instead
of you know, like these flash like well it is cool,
here's what happens, and it's I don't know how much
of this is stage and how much isn't. But you
know how the old flash mobs would show up and

(19:30):
shut down an area and like do a dance or
whatever that or some kind of thing and and and
then I'll just disperse the same idea, only they used
um I believe it's four or five BMW M two
thirty five I carsum on a roundabout and so they
had people block off the traffic you know, people dressed
up to look like a police person. People block off

(19:50):
the traffic, and then these four cars entered and they
did this choreograph thing around the roundabout with lots of drifting,
of course, and some like alternate directions, you know, like
cars headed right towards each other kind of stuff. Yeah,
and I think you know what it was five now,
because I remember one where you know, four cars spin
out and make kind of a block form and another
car drift drifts through the middle of which is a

(20:11):
rout around about. So it's really really precise. It's really cool.
It's very short when I think it was used for
commercial or at least for like a Twitter ad or
something like that. You know. Also, Holden had a precision
driving team. Okay, that might have been the one that
I saw that I couldn't tell what those vehicles were
because it was blurry. It was it was like an
old pixelized video that I saw. They did one with

(20:34):
VP Commodore's. That's the one that's the one I couldn't
I couldn't tell what type of vehicle that was at first,
because again it was too pixelated. But that is maybe
one of the most impressive displays I've ever seen. That
was Bathroost incredible if you if you can look that up,
if you're able to do that right now or you know,
I can do it later. That's one to look at

(20:55):
what was the what was the track again? Uh? It
was Bathurst nineteen nine too. You can check out holding
Precision Driving Team. Yeah, and those moves are unreal, aren't they.
I mean, yes, crample, I mean spinning around a car,
getting like just doing those maneuvers anyway, like without the
precision element. Like just imagine just doing that with with
just a car on a on a big open parking lot.

(21:18):
That's hard enough. I feel like this they drive the
way Neo would drive in the matrix. Yeah. Yeah, that's
a good way to put it. Yeah, exactly right. I
mean it's that is uh yeah, I'm gonna say that
that might even be the top one for me. I
just didn't know what to call that or how to
even look it up. Um. I did watch it, and
I forgot to write down the right down the link
or anything, but amazing control. It might be a little

(21:40):
bit of a slow burn to in some places, but
if you check out, if you check out what they're doing,
just the physics and the timing of it should be astonishing.
So there's something else here, and this might be a
little bit of a plot twist for you. I'll go
and talk about this, all right. So we're talking about
precision driving, Scott. Obviously, you and Noel and I love

(22:02):
the stunt driving. We we love the the drifting, and
we love seeing, you know, any kind of death defying act.
But there's something bigger at play here. There's something more
to the story of synchronized driving. What is it? You
know where I'm going with us? Maybe? Maybe? Now? Are
you thinking about racing the the the split second reflexes

(22:26):
that drivers have. Oh, that's a pretty good one. We
can talk about that. This is a different one. Okay,
wellcome tell me what years is I I really wanted
to look at synchronized driving because my spider sense told
me it would become even more important in the coming years,
really more important. This type of precisions, type of control

(22:49):
would be more important. You're talking for autonomous vehicles, of course,
but nail on the head, are you talking about humans
avoiding autonomous vehicles? Are you talking about autonomous vehicles being
able to do this on their own without you know,
without our input, right I am, I'm talking about autonomous
vehicles functioning in a interconnected network. Well, I guess that's

(23:12):
a repetitive phrase. All networks should be interconnected. Yeah, this
is like formation driving, like schooling, yeah, or like fishes
like fishes fish, I guess schooling on the highway. Yes,
and even further than that, Scott, this would be this
would be critical for the fleet function that autonomous vehicles

(23:37):
will need to perform if they are to ever function
in a feasible way in the in the actual world,
actual rubber on the road. So the the thing that
we're talking about is not just not just autonomous driving
in fleets or you know, prioritizing lanes on a two

(24:00):
lane highway right with an autonomous uh tractor or something
and then an autonomous sports car. What we're looking at
is the idea of complex stop and go traffic functioning
high speeds wait for it, without traffic lights. Ah, without

(24:22):
traffic lights. Okay, so intersection busy intersections that now have
traffic lights with no type of control at all because
not needed really right. M I. T. Has been doing
some research on this and has some calculations as some
calculations that prove I hope you can hear my air

(24:42):
quotes here, folks, that prove in theory that this would
be safer, lead to more efficient traffic, lower emissions, and
a dramatic reduction in accidents. Right. Do you recall when
we were talking about Audie with this type of technology
not long ago, and it was the idea was that,
again with the the school mentality, like a fish school mentality,

(25:05):
that uh, if there were enough vehicles that were autonomous,
that had this system that they were talking about built in,
that they could all kind of control traffic on their own.
Even that even if it meant that not every single
car had this this technology, but only like sixty of
them or something like that, it was it was a
relatively low percentage when you think about controlling every other

(25:26):
vehicle around you. I think it was still over half though,
and the yeah, I think you're right, and but oh
maybe yeah. And the idea was though that it would
time or instead of timing the lights like instead of
you know, um making them cascade or making them all
time for the exact same cycle or whatever. Uh, the
idea was that the car would know when that light
is gonna turn green because it was you know, tipped

(25:49):
in on on what that computer was thinking. You know,
the traffic control computer that controls the city, which is
a true thing. Check out our check out our podcast
on traffic lights. It is far more interesting than it
might sound at first. Yeah, it really is. I mean
there's there's definitely central computers that are controlling hundreds of
intersections and cities and city very very cool and and

(26:11):
changing and all the all the time as well. But
the idea was that it would know when that was
gonna happen. It could either speed up or slow down
to make that next light. And this idea that you're
talking about seems to kind of match that. It's it's
like another evolution of that idea. Yeah, yeah, it's uh,
it's v t V. So it's vehicle to vehicle interaction
wherein every car knows its position relative to or I

(26:35):
shouldn't say car, every vehicle news its position relative to
other vehicles. And this this specific research comes from m
I T S Sensible Lab s E N S E
able that it's a part right, uh. And they teamed

(26:56):
up with the Swiss Institute of Technology and the Italian
National Research Council to see if they could replace actually
replace traffic lights, remove traffic lights uh entirely. And what
they found is that they would need a bunch of
host sensors and uh. And then they also found two

(27:19):
other weaknesses. I already mentioned the pros right, pure accidents, UH,
more efficient traffic. You'll get from point A to point
B with fewer obstacles, uh, fewer emissions, although I'm still
not sold on that one, because what if point zero
five percent less could still qualify as fewer and hopefully

(27:41):
zero road rage as well, because with the idea of
the general ideas that everybody, I mean every one of
these vehicles is is being considerate to the other one,
and you know someone's two lanes over to the left,
well maybe maybe the situation would even happen because you know,
like the last minute, when someone tries to make an
off ramp or something like and and you know, right now,
the human element sometimes won't let you do that, and

(28:03):
the human element, I hear your road rage, bubbly, some
drivers maybe would not let somebody get over to do that.
And the idea would be that well, they would all
sense that that car needs to get over that ramp
and allow it to happen. Whatever that takes, you know,
either speeding up, slowing down, allowing it through. But again,
maybe that situation would never happen. There's there's all these
different scenarios really, because maybe it would be in the

(28:27):
proper lane to begin with. It wouldn't be that last
minute decision. But in some cases, the simple structure of
a roadway compared to a route that has no possible
deviation requires like a left hand turn and then uh,
swing in two lanes across or something. Yeah, sure that happens.
But this this stuff, despite all the pros, and despite

(28:50):
the fact that companies and governments are pouring collectively hundreds
of millions if they had to hit the billion market
of dollars into research on this, there's still some big cons.
And one of the biggest cons for this M I
T Swiss and Italian project on intersections is that even

(29:13):
if they reach this uh, this holy grail of synchronized
autonomous driving, there are two huge factors that are not
even part of the equation yet. One what happens if
the internet connection breaks down? Right these because if these

(29:35):
are V two V, if the vehicles are talking to
one another and one of them loses touch, then all
of a sudden, we have we have potential. Right, It's
like if it's like if there was to go back
to the earlier dancing analogy just because I can't think
of a better one. Oh wait, you know what, Football

(29:55):
would be a better one because in football, uh, every
member of the needs to be included in ideally needs
to know what's going to happen on this play and
what their position is in this play and how they
can best support the overall team. So in this analogy,

(30:15):
what if one of those football players goes blind right
in the middle of the play, right in the middle
of the play. That's what happens if an internet connection
breaks down. Unless these vehicles have some sort of internal redundancy,
you know, unless they have an ability to well, we're
all hoping that that is something that they do consider

(30:36):
and build in. I'm sure that there has to be
these fail safes. You know, that happened, But how does
the how does the rest of the vehicles react to it?
That's the that's the question. How does that affect that choreography,
that that synchronism, synchronism, synchronicity that's happening on the street
at the time, Is it um I mean, do they
handle it in that you know, that car just pulls

(30:56):
over to the side until it, you know, re establishes
the connection. Does it continue on with some kind of
just just like a blind dumb program that says continue
on your path away based on the last information or
or um, you know, somehow based on what everybody else
is doing. Like if if you're going fifty five and
you can't slow down because you're in the middle of
a group, like it, does it just go to proximity
sensors that are on board exactly like it? Does it?

(31:18):
Does it reduce itself to maybe something like an adaptive
cruise control where it just maintains until something takes control,
you know, whether that's the human writer or um. You
know that that's a bigger system. Maybe that says we've
got we've got one out of control here. Let's say
let's bring it in. But then it's like that's almost
like someone's like an aircraft controller or something you know
that they're they're they're bringing but been having remote control

(31:39):
able to steer it to safety. That's kind of scary
thought too. Yeah, and this goes to another idea, which
would be the legal status of people in an autonomous vehicle.
So so far, all of the experiments on road with
an autonomous vehicle have required a qualified driver to be

(32:02):
at the helm to man the wheel in case something
goes wrong. And this in this case, then what it
sounds like we're proposing would be that if the UH
network interaction or the network connection breaks down for an
individual vehicle, then there's a proximity sensors, adaptive cruise control,
maybe a fail safe that requires the vehicle to pull

(32:25):
over and stop stop servicing, or that the driver has
to you know, land the play. Well, you know, here's
here's the thing that I want one question I've got
with this, this whole thing. He said that there would
have to be somebody who is is licensed behind the
wheel that could take over. That's kind of the situation
where in right now where they can't say that it's autonomous,
but it really is autonomous. You have to have a

(32:46):
driver in the driving position, a license driver. You can't
just you know, put your twelve year old kid in
the car and say, you know, take take him to
you know, grandma's house with god Billy, Yeah you can.
You can't just do that right now. And that's a
thing like, what what about what about this scenario where
all right, just this is the last one I promised,
but um, one of our listeners, isn't it well, Rudy

(33:09):
Rudy Smith writes, he and he's made a very good
point to this, and I meant to bring this up
a lot earlier. But one of the things that he's
looking forward to about autonomous vehicles is that, um, it
increases mobility for older, older drivers. You know, people that
maybe you're to the point where they're gonna lose their license,
their visions failing, they're they're not as quick with reaction time.
You know, it's just a safety thing so that you know,

(33:31):
they can maintain mobility longer in life. And I think
that's fantastic idea for these things. You know, that's a
that's a great use for them. But what happens if
you know, something happens to their vehicle when they're behind
the wheel and they're not a license driver anymore. But
they're they're not you know, like a young kid. They're
old enough, you know, they're responsible adults. They're just out
on their own. But let's say that they're legally considered
blind or they have UM, you know, a physical condition

(33:52):
that restricts movement of the right shoulders something, and they're
not able to to maneuver a vehicle the way that
they could ten years ago. The reaction time is slow. Yeah,
I mean, and honestly, we're talking about people that maybe
at a point where they would have had to surrender
their their standard drives a license, but they can get
an autonomous license because well it's it's a it's a
way to extend their mobility. Careful, they can buy an

(34:14):
autonomous uh subscription fee. People won't be buying their own
autonomous cars for a while. Okay, all right, well I
could point taken. But um, but that I mean point
taken as well. That's a that's a really good point.
We could we could increase mobility for a vast swath
of the population, especially in countries where there is a
grain boom, you know, countries like Japan, uh, frankly parts

(34:38):
of the US. Oh sure, that's gonna be even even
more critical in the decades to come. I think very soon,
as a matter of fact, with all the all the
boomers getting older, there's gonna be a point where they're
not gonna want to give up that driving privilege. Of course,
who would want to know? No one does. And that's
the that's the hard part about this whole thing is
you have to decide when and uh, if this is
a solution to extend that why not. You know, he

(34:59):
took this is a different direction than I thought you
were going to. I like it. That was really that
was a good idea that you know that they do
have to operate in a synchronized way. Um My, just
to briefly come back to what I was talking about, No, no,
not at all. I mean, I just wanted to mention
this and and maybe this is like getting into a
little bit of an O. C. D thing of mine.

(35:20):
All right, this is where I see this as well.
Um there's something very pleasing to me, very comforting about this.
And I know it's weird to say it this way,
but but it is. It's somehow, I don't know, I'll
describe it and see if someone else feels the same
way about this. But at the beginning of a race,
when the pace cars pulled off, I know, there's a

(35:41):
there's you know, the parade laps, and you know they
drive by and they waved the crowding and all that,
and the cars are still warm enough, and they're they're
you know, wiggling around trying to get the tires warm up.
When the pace car pulls off and the cars around
turn four and the flagman's there with the green flag
in his hand or her hand, watching, waiting to wave
that flag, the cars get into a very precise, precision,

(36:05):
uh lineup. You know, it's it's you know, Indianapolis, it's
it's eleven rows of three, um, you know other races,
you know, it's maybe two, you know, side by side,
but it's all they're all in an exact order, and
the flagment won't wave that flag until they're in that order,
so it can't be all jumbled up to me. To me,
for whatever reason, I just find it so it's not.
It's almost like soothing to see it. It's like they're

(36:27):
they're all in line. This is all gonna go down
just the way it should. I feel good about it
right at that moment. And then of course, the second
the green flag comes out, you know, everybody darts all
over the Yeah. But but honestly, there's something about that start,
even sometimes even a restart, where everybody's in a precision,
you know, a precise line. But they're so close together.
It's it's like that. It's like that. It's a lot

(36:49):
like watching some of these synchronized teams working together. But
these are all individuals that just they're simply good drivers
and they know what to expect out of the driver
in front of them and the driver behind them. And
then also competitive rather than collaborative, which I think is
even more impressive. Well exactly, so you know, they're they're
counting on that driver to do what that driver is
supposed to do. They know that. You know, if you're

(37:09):
say in Indianapolis, you're on the outside inside or um,
I guess there's a middle position as well, so three wide.
That's tough to maintain. But everybody's got a role, and
if they messed that up, you're you're gonna wreck the
day for you know, three or four other cars as well,
other teams. Rather again, I know it's like a little
it's a little bit O c D. I get it.

(37:30):
Do you think I feel Yeah? I think I think
it is. I just like things lined up. I think
I like things precise like that. So so the synchronized driving,
these these displays that we're watching, I enjoy watching that.
I mean it's it's nerve racking sometimes, you know, to
see what they're doing. But when they're all in formation
and all lined up like that, that's there's something nice
about that. I have three things that they're really quick. Okay,

(37:53):
that cool? Sure, Okay, So first, I completely agree with you.
I don't think it's necessary early sentive o c D.
Because when I'm working on a lot of stuff and
I need to slow down and chill out. One of
the things I'm really fond of is finding a video
with a with a nice camera shot, a nice camera

(38:15):
angle rather of a busy intersection in a time lapse,
and just having that play. And sometimes I put on
like slow music and it's it's almost a meditative thing
to watch, Is that right? Like you did that like
a like an Indian intersection or something like like an
Asian Indian intersection, like where it's just craziness, but somehow

(38:37):
everybody gets through. Yeah, we're talking about And I like
watching them in time laps so you can see because
you can see the pattern. I think a little bit
better when you see it in time laps. I may
have a perfect video for you to watch them, Oh man,
please send it. There is a and I'll tell you
what to search. It's on YouTube, and this is an
edited piece, but it's called rush Hour Intersect Traffic condensed

(39:01):
into one minute. It's a long title. Again, rush hour
Intersection Traffic condensed into one minute. And again this is edited,
but it's highly impressive and that gives the impression because
of the way they move the camera. It's it's like
they had a lockdown shot of this intersection and they
they fake the camera moves like a push in, push
out or whatever. But you'll see that like they'll they'll

(39:21):
be It's just this crazy chaos scene where many cars
are coming through, bicycle riders or police cars. There's walkers,
there's a little bit of everything, you know, pedestrians going
through and everybody. It's all narrow misses, but no one
stops moving. They all move continuously. And the way it's
edited together is so clever and so crafty that you
think it's all one shot. It's really really it's interesting.

(39:43):
I think you're gonna like it if you like that
type of thing. And again it's only one minute, and
it's it's pretty incredible to watch. I mean I've watched
it two or three times now, and I marvel at
how they do it. Yeah, I I personally love that stuff.
So listeners, if you have any videos that fit that
description or any hot leads for me, please send them
to our email. Uh. One other the other thing, the

(40:04):
other two things. The big piece that that he didn't
get too earlier that's missing from this m I T
research is the presence of pedestrians, the presence of bicycles.
We're not going to have autonomous bikes for a while.
We're gonna have autonomous fleets of cars first, but we

(40:25):
will probably hopefully always have pedestrians, I mean even now.
Of course, there are places where pedestrians are not legally
allowed to be present, right, like a highway highways, But
but pedestrians are should be present in most surface level streets,

(40:45):
right just yea. So what about like stray dogs and
things like that? Right right? What about street dogs? What
about uh, someone who accidentally stumbles in? What about the
human element? How does a vehicle in a network of
vehicles react to someone running out in the street and
then what effect does that have on the rest of

(41:09):
the network. See, this is where I think it might
work better than it does right now, and that you
know they can communicate to two vehicles to three, four
cars back instead of somebody you know, two three or
four cars back having to abruptly slam in the brakes.
That might work better. Might everybody could be more. It
could be more of a gradual so down, like a
ripple effect, instead of the way it is now where
it's just an immediate um obstruction that you know that

(41:33):
one person deals with in one way and then another
one has less time to react, and the person behind
them has even less time to react because it's a
you know, abrupt stop or or whatever the case may be.
Someone swerved. Maybe um, all that, all those favorite situations.
I think I think that maybe if you're still better,
if it's if it can ripple out like that, if
you know, one can communicate that there's something, there's problem

(41:53):
three cars ahead and slow down, that'd be great, because
right now no one does that. It's sort of already happening.
We're seeing a proto version of this with that GPS
at ways, you know, which I've raved about to you before. Yeah,
we I use it. Well I don't. I don't have
personally have it. My wife has it. But that's doing

(42:13):
some of the same things that we were talking about
in a way. In a Ways, You're welcome everybody. I
am so sorry, but it's doing the same thing when
when it has an alert pop up that says, uh,
you know there's a hazard ahead uh and or there's
heavy traffic or here's an alternate route. One thing about Ways, man,

(42:35):
I really dropped the ball on Ways, I did. I
did a dumb move, my friends. So I was messing
around with with Ways, and I had stopped somewhere to
to get some gas, and then while I was waiting
for the pump to fill up, this thing came on
with Ways and it said do you want to have

(42:55):
a different person do The voice is free. I guess
there's a promotion for a film or something, and so
I said sure, And I didn't really pay attention to
it other than to note that it was free, because
of course, to me, we're talking about And then I
turned it on and now I am so sick of
Morgan Freeman telling me what to do. It's Morgan Freeman's

(43:18):
voice with the At first that that was going to
be fine Scott, because that guy has a cool voice.
But now it got to the point where it looked
really bad in front of someone because you were driving
and you know, I'm yelling at Morgan Freeman like no
you turn left, turn? Like, so, what's the what's the standard?
But it's just kind of a generic voice that they right, Yeah,

(43:40):
the generic voice is typically actually for things like Sirie
and in almost any automated voice. Uh. The trend the
majority of those voices are gonna sound female. Um, so
do they have other Um? I'm sorry no, No, do
they have other actor or or lebrity. I assume they do.

(44:01):
I assume they do. Well, who do you think you
want to go with? Next? Who would be your next
Ways voice? Do you thank you thing? Nices? Man, I'm
always in such a hurry that I haven't. I know,
it's only going to take a couple of a couple
of minutes if that. But I every time I hop
in the car and i'm pulling up Ways, I'm usually
running late to something so I want so I haven't

(44:22):
switched it back over. But I'm sure there's just a
an embarrassment of riches when it comes to voices. He'lls
go with whatever's free, right, Yeah, I'll go with whatever
I don't have to pay for it, Like I you know,
I don't know if I would do your voice or uh,
Josh or Chuck's voice, or I definitely wouldn't do my voice.

(44:42):
That's hurtful. Why would you say something like that. I'm sorry, man,
I just I feel like it would damage the show
because because I'm just learning, I guess I was accustomed
to this sort of generic American accent sounding stranger's robot voice,
and now now I feel like I have beef with

(45:04):
Morgan Freeman. I wonder if you can get accents, like
if you could have a Southern accent, or if you
could have maybe like a Northeast accent, right right, Yeah,
it'd be kind of fun. I bet there's I bet
there's somebody working on that of Action Jersey version of
Ways of Jersey Ways. Oh man, you heard it here first, folks.
Maybe if if so, please feel free to uh send

(45:25):
the royalty check to How Stuff Works. If you feel
like we are stealing your idea and you have a
complain about it, UH, please email us. We're Jonathan dot
Strickland at how stuff works dot com. Uh. And the
last thing to end on here, the last thing before
you go, one thing that we should mention about all
of these precisions. Uh, these precisions stunt synchronized driving teams.

(45:50):
Is that in every case I saw, each team is
using the exact same car, which makes sense, right, You
have to if you want to be able to um
work that closely together in such precision or in a
driving then you have to eliminate all possible variables. But
I would like to see a motley crew of precision drive. Well,

(46:12):
I've seen not a motley crew by any means. But
that Lexus one that I started with, Yeah, that one
they had the supercar, they had a couple of like
their GT three race cars. I thought they were no.
See that's the thing. They were on a race track
and they're all just about equally matched in power and
speed and all that. You know close enough and you
know professional drivers, but it's not. It's I would not
call it a motley crew of vehicles by any means.

(46:33):
And the one that did go wrong, the MG cars, Yeah,
that one was also a mix of vehicles. I can't
believe that totally woosh, because you did say Lexis, but
then you said, amg Is. Oh no, that's that's totally fine,
that MG thing, yeah, because we went right past that.
But the Lexus example, where they are drifting around all
the Fuji Speedway. You can watch that one. This is
as kind of neat, but it doesn't have the the

(46:56):
the charm I guess of the older Hyundai or the
older season commercials or the ads or whatever. Those are
really displays um that. You know, they're all the same
vehicles and all very very precise and very It's just
it's it's very nice to watch, isn't it. I mean,
it's it's fun to watch. Have you ever have you
ever done precision driving or choreographed driving this way right?

(47:17):
I guess uh, okay, not choreographed, but I'll tell you
what we did do. And this is why I have
such respect for the guys that can do this type
of stuff. In high school, there was a neighborhood that
was being built, and I hope the statute of limitations
is long pasture. Think, Okay, there's a neighborhood that was
being built in our in our city. It wasn't really
that close to school or anything, but we knew where.

(47:38):
It was an open place. They had the roads in
dirt lots, you know, piles of stuff and no houses,
nothing like that, and probably was being monitored by police
all the time, but we didn't know. So lots of
wide open streets and fresh fresh asphalt and and lots
of possibilities for kids with you know, an escort GT
that's five speed, and lots of imagination. And I would take, uh,

(48:02):
sometimes take my mom's cars there, which were nothing fancy.
They were like the K car versions of whatever, you know,
but still kind of fun to drive, and we would
try to do things like, you know, full speed reverse,
whip the wheel around so you do like a one
eighty poll emergency brake and then accelerate out with the
wheels smoking, you know that kind of thing. We try
that crap all the time. We do that. We try

(48:23):
like crazy like drift, almost drifting but with the break,
and that's how we do it. It's front wheel drive. Um,
we didn't know you could actually drift a front wheel
drive car at the time, but we probably would have.
And we took Mustangs there. We took all kinds of
My friend's father worked for Ford and I had company
cars all so we had all kinds of stuff and
there were some shenanigans going on in that neighborhood, but

(48:44):
it was fun, but we never quite nailed anyone maneuver
or anything. It was just it was fun to try it,
and it it only lasted for a little while until they
started actually building houses there. How about you any any
experience with like maybe going to like a dirt road
and trying to drift around corners and stuff like that.
Oh yeah, I experience with the with the drifting stuff,
especially my friends who had cars that were better suited

(49:05):
for it. But I think this will interest you and listeners.
I want to know if you've done this as well,
this little bit of a road rage thing. My most
effective synchronized driving has been with strangers on the road
when we make a sudden bond. The so there are
a lot of there are a lot of roads here
in Atlanta, and then the Metro area that are four

(49:28):
lanes two lanes of traffic each way right, and then
because this is Atlanta where there's so many terrible drivers
present company excluded, I hope, well, I'm I have my issues,
and here's one. Whenever there is a not whenever, sorry, Scott.
Sometimes when there is a would be stunt driver thinks

(49:52):
they're great. They're above turn signals, they're tailgating everyone, they're
swerving in and out predictively that kind of they when
they change lanes, of the vehicle kind of tilts to one. Yeah,
it weighs a bit. So there have been times I'm
a two lane road and then someone's being just a
complete uh a complete jabroniss I can okay, a complete jackass,

(50:21):
thank you. When someone's being a complete jackass about this stuff.
I've had that moment. Maybe you've had it two listeners
where I look at the car that's next to me
in the other lane, the same one, and we just
sort of have that unspoken thing where we nod and
we maintain the same speed and we paced each other.
You're blocking the traffic, we're blocking that guy. You're blocking

(50:43):
just that one guy. I get it. And and this
is when the most extreme case, and this was still
one of the coolest people that will never actually meet.
The most extreme case was when me and this dude
who was in really nice It was like it was
like a brand new BMW and you know you know that, well, guys,

(51:06):
we know that BMW drivers sometimes have a stereotype of
being jerks. Not this guy. He was the best and
his car could have easily smoked the It was it
was like a Dodge Neon and the guy was going
nuts trying to trying to get around. It looked like
he was trying to get in an accident because he

(51:27):
had been there for uh, he had been there for
ten minutes and almost hit two people that I saw.
I was driving in the right lane, and I was
in the right in this situation, I maintained. But the
worst thing we slowed down. He looked at me and
we both kept going slower, and he's by the end
of it. We were doing maybe thirty on a forty
five mile per hour, but there was no one else.

(51:49):
It was just this one guy behind us, buzzing like
an angrier hornet. Yeah, that's that's not a good way
to make friends. No regrets. He deserved it, and I'm
sure the statute of limitations has passed, and I try
not to. We talked about road rage before. It's very
tempting to be judge, jury and executioner on the road.
And one of the things my excuse to tell me

(52:12):
was she was like, then, this is not a teachable moment.
You need to quit feeling that you are teaching people,
are educating people on the road. You're just being a jerk.
Now you're just making them mad, that's all. But I
never started, Scott, I never started. I ended. Okay, Well,
there you go with the executioner. Oh yeah, you're right.

(52:33):
One day at a time, my friends, one day at
a time. We're all guilty of a little road rage
here and there. I'm here. Oh yes, most people are.
I'm sure. I don't. I think it's a very rare
individual that allows all of that stuff to just go
by without, you know, without any kind of animosity. Knowles
a super chill guy, though he might be immune to
road race and as user and a user and a
wa user, yeah, there would be null in sync Brown, Yes, yeah,

(52:57):
so I guess in sync one out over hud Well,
I'm I'm made it work. Yeah, alright, ladies and gentlemen,
we hope you enjoyed this, and please do send us
some videos or stories of synchronized driving, your favorite synchronized
driving experiences. If you happen to have had a bad
experience as the driver of a purple neon several years ago,

(53:20):
then uh, maybe we've already met, in which case I
do not apologize. In the meantime, we would we'd like
to hear your suggestions as we said at the top
of the show, check it. Check with us on Facebook
and Twitter for more information about Glenn's work and the
upcoming rally. Yeah, the rally for the Camp Sunshine people right,

(53:42):
the rally for Camp Sunshine. If you want to check
out our earlier podcasts on precision driving, on stunt driving,
then visit our website car Stuff Show dot com. And
if you have a suggestion for a topic, we'd love
to hear it because all of our best show ideas
come from you. Our address is car stuff at how
stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands

(54:08):
of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you say, Send an email to
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