The Self-Driving Car is Going to End in Disaster
by Joshua Krause
Activist Post
Sept 1, 2014
On the surface, self driving cars sounds like a godsend. You could sit back and relax during your commutes, safe in the knowledge that your computer-driven vehicle will get you to your destination safe and sound. “Safe” being the keyword here, because these vehicles will supposedly be safer than any human driver. The computer will never experience road rage or fatigue, and will have lightning fast reflexes. So far, Google’s test vehicles have driven over 700,000 thousand miles without incident.
However, we don’t really know how safe or effective they’ll be until ordinary drivers begin adopting the technology on a wider basis. Many of the test drives may have been restricted to ideal conditions. In California, for instance, Google has painstakingly mapped out 2000 miles of roadway for their testing, ignoring the other 172,000 miles of public roads. They’ve essentially created the perfect lab setting to test the technology, and their self-driving cars may not be prepared for real-world conditions.
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