Giving birth to a project: Virtual Driving School

merendo · Post by **merendo** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:35 pm

Hey everyone,

i am tinkering with the idea to start coding a virtual driving school programme. I don't actually have the skills to do it all alone, so I'm gonna need some help. However, since I am learning to drive myself, I know virtually all rules in road traffic.

Here's what I think this programme/game should have:
- A virtual driving teacher, telling you what to do in the first few lessons
- After about 5 driving lessons no driving teacher, but warnings when the user does something wrong
- Multiple areas for driving (In-Town, Out-Of-Town, Speedway, Night, Fog/Rain/Snow, Slippery roads, Traffic jams, etc.)
- Must be capable of handling both right-hand traffic and left-hand traffic
- Exam-mode with no warnings at all, but a result at the end of the exam (45 minutes)
- Learning drive a car with either a manual transmission or automatic transmission
- Adjustable features like automatic speed control, 5 or 6 gears (manual transmission only), etc.

Anyone interested in helping me do this? When it's finished, I think we could even make some money with this.

merendo

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 5:23 pm

1st of all: Its VERY different what you need to learn in different countries. ex in denmark we have Right-first rule wich some countries do not.

2rd of all: In denmark it costs 1500€-2000€ normally, and it takes 4 months. In usa sometimes all you need is your parents

3rd, for example in denmark its not allowed to drive over 130 on highways, you are not allowed to drive more than 80 on country roads, and often 50 in cities, sometimes others of course as 60, 15,35,70 or so.

4rd: Actually, afterall its pretty much the same to drive, so if you concentrate on rules like keeping distance, be SURE to get the right speed info depending on what country you come from, and so on.. Then its duable. And i think you might even earn money on it, people are so damn nervous..

merendo · Post by **merendo** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:41 pm

1. afaik, in countries with right-hand traffic, it's the right-first rule, in countries with left-hand traffic, it's the left-first rule. I don't believe that some countries have no rule whatsoever, because somebody must have give way to somebody else, otherwise, there would be quite many car crashes.

2. The intention of the programme is not to replace the driving school (as we need it in germany) but rather to practice driving. But I think it would still be more "qualified" than only the parents, who are perhaps not aware of all the important rules themlselves.

3. I think this should be adjustable. Here in Germany, we have the general speed limit of 50 kmph in cities, 100 kmph outside cities and the soft limit of 130 kmph on speedways (which actually means that you should not drive faster than 130 kmph, but in fact you can drive as fast as you want). Of course, this problem does not persist where speed limits are explicitly stated.

Trond · Post by **Trond** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:07 pm

merendo wrote:1. afaik, in countries with right-hand traffic, it's the right-first rule, in countries with left-hand traffic, it's the left-first rule. I don't believe that some countries have no rule whatsoever, because somebody must have give way to somebody else, otherwise, there would be quite many car crashes.

Some countries has the rule that the cars which wants to enter a road always goes after the cars already on the road no matter the side they come from.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:14 pm

Yes! trond is right. An example is South Africa, and i know other has it too.

However i do want to say, that the project is interesting.

merendo · Post by **merendo** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:11 pm

I don't quite get this. Given this simple example, the red car would have to give way to the green one (right-first) in order to avoid the crash. But who would have way in South Africa (f.i.)?

Please explain, I am too stupid to drive a car

Okay, so you would be ready to help me? I mean, I would use OGRE for the 3D-Display, but for now, we will only need a skeleton of the project. I was just thinking about one typical problem for "learnings": The virtual engine must be killable of course

Trond · Post by **Trond** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:18 pm

They use traffic lights or simply crash I think.

Edit: Ok, found out, if it's not obvious which road is the large one (prioritized) or the small one they always have priority signs.

Edit 2: Maybe I'm wrong, it seems to be nonsense not to have either a left-first or a right-first rule.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 11:44 pm

since i've been in south africa, i say its the first who get to the road.. Of course also signs and so on..

Well also we do have different signs, so it is still much easier to develop this product to a single country, eg germany and then move on. There is simply too much difference..

merendo · Post by **merendo** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 11:54 pm

Okay, let's simply assume that they have traffic signs or traffic lights to solve this problem. I think we can be content with the right-first or left-first rules

I believe that within europe or probably even the states & canada (americans and canadians: please correct me if i am wrong) we can think of virtually the same rules and (at least the most basic) traffic signs. I mean, people don't need to learn to drive again when they want to take their car on holiday with them

freedimension · Post by **freedimension** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 12:35 am

merendo wrote:Okay, let's simply assume that they have traffic signs or traffic lights to solve this problem. I think we can be content with the right-first or left-first rules

I believe that within europe or probably even the states & canada (americans and canadians: please correct me if i am wrong) we can think of virtually the same rules and (at least the most basic) traffic signs. I mean, people don't need to learn to drive again when they want to take their car on holiday with them

IMHO in the US they also have the "first come, first serve" rule at crossings without traffic lights or yield signs.

Post by **Dare2** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 12:37 am

In Zambia they decided to switch from driving on the left to driving on the right.

Rather than cause heaps of confusion by switching everyone overnight, they decided to do it in stages ... first, big vehicles, like trucks ...

In South Africa, give way to all, minor to major road. Else give way to right. But as thefool says, usually give way to the guy with the car that will "win" in an argument, or the guy with the car so trashed he has nothing to lose compared to you. (He obviously took on a few already, better let him have the right ..)

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:00 am

Dare2 wrote:(He obviously took on a few already, better let him have the right ..)

Exactly!

merendo · Post by **merendo** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 12:35 pm

Jesus. I think I gotta upgrade my car insurance before starting to drive in such a country

I'm gonna ask my driving-teacher whether he is familiar with these rules in these countries. I don't quite get it right now...

Back to topic: Little change in the concept, because if we're really gonna do this, we're gonna stumple upon the problem, that few people have a wheel and pedals on their computers. So I think the main idea of the programme should not be to learn driving, but rather to learn the rules. It must be assumed that the user is already aware of how to handle the clutch, shift gears without killing the engine and so on. So I think we can completely cross out the planned virtual driving teacher. Instead, gears must be controlled with the number keys 1 - 5 / 6 (without any kind of clutch), and the accelerator / brake will simply be the arrow-up/arrow-down keys, same thing with the wheel.