The folks at Google never cease to amaze us. When they aren’t perfecting everything from online maps to search rankings, they are tackling innovations such as the current driverless car initiative. And while this may have seemed like a wild idea to begin with, the Google driverless car can now drive itself better than the average human – depending on the stats you read.
The average American driver has an accident approximately once every 165,000 miles if you put some statistics together. Average mileage driven per year for Americans is 16,550 and someone has an accident once every 10 years – therefore one accident every 165,000 miles. On the contrary, the Google driverless car has gone 300,000 miles without any kind of accident. So if you go by those stats, the Google car is safer than your average driver.
Of course, there is a lot of work to be done before car drivers become simply car occupants. The Google driverless car still operates with one or two humans inside to take over in case of a malfunction or unexpected situation. The process is sophisticated – using a range of cameras and sensors to “see” other traffic and barriers – but it’s not yet ready for situations such as construction zones, hazardous road conditions and other unforeseen events.
So until the Google driverless car can guarantee protection in all elements, we’ll stick to driving.
Tags: driverless car
