Google’s Self-Driving Cars Drive Safely in the City

Ever since Google’s self-driving car project was unveiled in 2009, there has been speculation on one particular topic: will Google’s driverless cars be safe? To address the all-important safety issue, Google has done a lot of research and testing in order to produce a system that will be able to drive a car on public roads without posing a risk to the safety of both the occupants inside the vehicle as well as other individuals that it shares the road with. Extensive testing has been done on rural highways to see how the car would react to common driving situations.

In 2012, Google has made a lot of progress with its self-driving cars, which allowed them to be tested on city streets for the very first time. Unlike driving in a straight line on a highway, city driving is a serious challenge for an automated system that controls a vehicle. The presence of pedestrians, higher amounts of traffic, intersections, as well as the possibility of unpredictable events, such as a pedestrian suddenly darting in the middle of the road or a car barreling through a red light at an intersection are all things that can happen when driving in an urban area.

According to Google, the self-driving car can actually be safer than a human driver in many situations. It knows the rules of the road, plus obeys speed limits, traffic signals and posted signs at all times. Unlike a human driver, the driverless car system will never get distracted or tired.

As part of their continuous testing efforts, Google has taken their self-driving cars for tests in Mountain View, California. So far, no major safety problems have been uncovered. The car is able to operate in a variety of scenarios and is even able to react well to more complex situations, such as recognizing hand signals from a cyclist and obeying the commands of a construction worker holding a “STOP” sign by the side of the road.

For now, the self-driving car must still have a human driver behind the wheel who can assume manual control should the situation call for it. But with the progress they have made so far, Google could definitely be able to put their product into commercial use in the near future.