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posted by LaminatorX on Monday May 11 2015, @06:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-mousetrap dept.

According to an article by the AP - via an ad-free site several of the self driving cars licensed to drive in California have been involved in accidents.

Most are slow speed accidents, apparently with no injuries.

Four of the nearly 50 self-driving cars now rolling around California have gotten into accidents since September, when the state began issuing permits for companies to test them on public roads. Two accidents happened while the cars were in control; in the other two, the person who still must be behind the wheel was driving, a person familiar with the accident reports told The Associated Press.

Three involved Lexus SUVs that Google Inc. outfitted with sensors and computing power in its aggressive effort to develop "autonomous driving," a goal the tech giant shares with traditional automakers. The parts supplier Delphi Automotive had the other accident with one of its two test vehicles. Google and Delphi said their cars were not at fault in any accidents, which the companies said were minor.

Neither the companies involved, nor the State of California will release details of these accidents, which rankles some critics.

Four accidents involving these 50 cars in 8 months may seem a little high. Google's 23 cars have driven 140,000 miles in that time and racked up 3 accidents all by them selves. That is an order of magnitude higher than the National Transportation Safety Board's figures of 0.3 per 100,000 for non injury accidents. However the NTSB doesn't collect all fender bender accidents.

The article says that none of the other states that permit self driving cars have any record of accidents.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 12 2015, @01:36PM

    by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 12 2015, @01:36PM (#181928) Homepage

    Exactly. Driving is not a part-time job; it's a state of awareness one gets into and stays in for the duration, which is why most of us do it well. One driver in a thousand might react appropriately when 'awakened' from their Facebook nap; the rest are more likely to panic and react badly or far too late. [Side note: I found that playing DOOM, where you can get ambushed from any angle at any moment, made me a better driver, more aware in all directions.]

    I think self-driving cars are likely to be all or nothing; if it's "some" there'll be too many vehicles acting in ways live drivers don't expect and can't properly anticipate, as the self-drivers behave in situationally-wrong ways (failing to anticipate from those tiny cues that live drivers catch). I expect our eventual adjustment will be to stay the hell away from any self-driving car we see on the road, or to confine their use to HOV-type lanes.

    Drivers in America seem to be a different beast from the rest of the world, tho. I watch a lot of those Russian dashcam vids, and here in America we just never see that level of uncoordinated, oblivious, and "Rules of the road? Whuzzat??"

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