Driving in traffic is nerve-wracking. Push the gas, stop on the brakes, repeat, repeat. Driving in New York City is a test of wills as you almost have to be aggressive to drive safely. What if we could text and speak on the phone safely while in traffic? What if we could avoid road rage?
Google is looking to solve the road rage with their drive-by-itself cars. Currently, Google is in beta mode by testing seven cars on the treacherous Route 1 between San Francisco and LA. If you see a Prius with a strange GPS-like structure on the roof, this is one of the beta cars. So far, the cars have driven over 140,000 with occasional human control. The only accident was a rear-ender from a regular car bumping into a stopped Google car. Hence, this was not the Google car’s fault.
The purpose: safety and more efficiency. There will be less traffic accidents since these robot cars have 360-degree views, no distractions, and no alcohol levels. Plus, roads will be doubled in capacity since these Google cars will be able to drive closer together. Also, the cars could be built lighter and cheaper versus heavier cars today that brace against crashes. Besides safety, we would be able to be more efficient, turning our cars into offices – no more road distractions when we want to text on our blackberry or work on our laptops.
The cool factor here is that you can program the car to drive cautious or aggressive. Do you want to yield to another car or zoom past him first? Also, if the cars are passed, you could conceivable have your car drop you off at a friend’s or bus stop, and then drive home itself to park. When you are ready to go home, you can summon your car to pick you up. Isn’t that wild?
The one hindrance is California law. The law says that a human must be operating the vehicle. Google will need to find a loophole or create one, showing that a human can override any possible error with the Google code. The other big hindrance I see is a computer virus. If a virus infects the program, then the Google robot car might drive amiss. Google supposedly has indicators which sense any actions that are not in line with its program, in turn, alerting the driver. However, if a computer virus or spyware is programmed well enough, how will the Google car know it’s being infected. Could Google cars infect other Google cars? Okay, I will not rain on Google’s parade here. I think this is a great concept as long as the legal tape and virus protection may be sorted out.
