Autonomous Vehicles Are Still Far From Perfect Dylan Duarte January 13, 2016 News Self-driving cars may be the wave of the future, but that future is still pretty far off, further than some may have expected. Google has been testing their autonomous vehicles for some time now, for a total of 1.3 million miles, but it hasn’t all been smooth sailing driving. Between September 24, 2014 and November 30, 2015, there were 341 incidents where test drivers had to assume control of the vehicle they were in, and 272 of those times were due to technology failures. According to Google, 69 of those incidents required the driver to take over to maintain “safe operation of the vehicle” and 13 of those times would have resulted in a collision otherwise. Two of those collisions would have been traffic cones, and three of them would have been caused by other drivers. Google is quick to point out two things: one, these are pretty low percentages, all told, and two: 89% of these incidents happened in complex street environments, with open-road driving being much more successful. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to point out that people were way too optimistic about how soon we would have autonomous vehicles roaming the streets. I believe in the technology, but I also believe it’s still quite a ways off. The biggest problem isn’t going to be making the cars safer, either, but convincing people of it. Share This With The World!
