Google’s Self-Driving Cars are Better Drivers Than us

Self-driving cars are becoming more and more common everywhere we look (in news at least); the key player in this is Google. For the autonomous scheme to be accepted by California law, the company needs to provide proof of the number of accidents that the autonomous vehicles were involved in and of that, how many were the cause. Well, the results are good, well they’re better than good.

Seven of the accidents involved the car being rear ended, at least one was the result of another driver running a red light and the rest were human errors; where a human was in control for whatever reason. Google has been testing these vehicles on the road since 2009, so those figures are very encouraging for those who wouldn’t want to trust a car with no one in control.

Despite the figures, the cars themselves won’t be ready for consumer purchase for a few years yet; mainly down to the fact that a few states in America have laws which govern the use of autonomous vehicles on the public highway. These laws are still relatively new though, so I’d bet on them being changed very soon; especially with the recent news of a Big Rig/ 18 wheeler/ artic lorry being given a ‘licence’ in Nevada.

Would you trust being in such a vehicle? Imagine the carnage if someone managed to hack all the vehicles in a certain area, adding say 10MPH onto the speed or setting the internal GPS to a few foot to one direction. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Thank you to MotorAuthority for providing us with this information.