Google is testing a self-driving car and has so far clocked up a total of 140,000 miles of driving without human intervention.
Nonetheless the search engine firm claims that the car is still very much in an ‘experimental stage’ as it collaborates with Stanford and Carnegie Mellon University to further develop driver-less car technology.
According to the company’s official blog, the car, a specially adapted Toyota Prius has the potential to cut road deaths ‘by half’ it estimates, as it uses video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to ‘see’ other traffic, as well as detailed maps to navigate the road ahead.
Engineers assisting in the trial include a number of those who competed in the DARPA Challenges, a series of races of autonomous cars establish by the US government. So far the Google car has been driven Santa Monica, Hollywood Boulevard, across the Golden Gate bridge and navigated the Pacific Coast Highway and been around Lake Tahoe. At all times the vehicle was manned to ensure safety, but the car has so far managed to negotiate around California without assistance or incident, except for one minor bump when another vehicle hit it from behind at a set of traffic lights.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 1.2 million lives are lost every year in road traffic accidents. Google says it is confident that self-driving cars could not only significantly cut road deaths but could also transform car sharing, significantly reducing car usage, as well as help create the new ’highway trains of tomorrow.’ Such highway trains would cut energy consumption while also increasing the number of people that can be transported on our major roads.
