🚀 go-pugleaf

     As mentioned above, some very detailed models of automobile 
handling are available.  Existing models are good enough to predict
vehicle behavior even under extreme conditions.  The first really
good model was developed at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory
(now Calspan) back in the 1970s.  As a demonstration of its
validity, it was used to design a set of ramps for a car stunt
in which a car executed a 360 degree roll in the air and landed 
smoothly on the landing ramp.  (A version of this stunt can be
seen in one of the James Bond movies; the ramps look like the ruins
of a bridge, but were very carefully calculated.  A movie credit
appears for the computation.)

     The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has been
doing some simulations of automated freeway driving, although their
model is 2D and has rather simplistic dynamics.  Contact the
Caltrans PATH (Programs to Automate the Highway) office in Sacramento.

					John Nagle