Google's Self-driving Cars Crash Less Frequently Than Conventional Cars

[Paul2]

Google, eager to demonstrate its self-driving vehicles are safe, says that its high-tech cars are involved in fewer crashes on average than vehicles with a driver behind the wheel.

A study commissioned by Google and released on Friday by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute shows, looked only at Google's fleet of more than 50 self-driving cars, which has logged 1.3 million miles in Texas and California in self-driving mode.

The test fleet has reported 17 crashes over the last six years, although none were the fault of the self-driving cars, Google said.

After adjusting for severity and accounting for crashes not reported to police, the study estimated cars with drivers behind the wheel are involved in 4.2 crashes per million miles, versus 3.2 crashes per million miles for self-driving cars in autonomous mode.

Crash rates for conventional vehicles at all severity levels were higher than self-driving crash rates, the study found.

Another study released in October by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute compared crash rates among Google, Delphi and Audi self-driving cars in 2013 and found they had a higher rate than for conventional cars.

But that study noted the low volume of driverless miles -- 1.2 million compared with 3 trillion miles driven annually on U.S. roads.

In December, California proposed state regulations that would require all autonomous cars to have a steering wheel, throttle and brake pedals when operating on California’s public roads.

http://cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=45309

interesting.

[Titan]

Definitely has promise. The drivers in my state are notoriously stupid. May make the roads safe. Though I wonder if self driving cars always do the speed limit. On New Jersey's state highways, people generally average 75-80 in the center and left lanes. Once in a while you get that douchebag left lane hugger. I can imagine drivers in my state will be furious and giving the old "Jersey Salute" to a left lane hugging Google car

[Paul2]

what is left lane hugger?

[Titan]

what is left lane hugger?

I don't know if this is used in the rest of the country but "left lane hugger", also known as "left lane douche bag", is a person that drives in the left lane on the highway, doesn't move over to the right to let other people pass, and only does 60-65 mph.

[Paul2]

oh i see.  i don't know how to drive and i get lost easily so i wouldn't know.

[Evi]

Human beings are terrible drivers. And most of the time the accidents caused by these driverless cars are from other people hitting them, not the other way around.

[Titan]

Human beings are terrible drivers. And most of the time the accidents caused by these driverless cars are from other people hitting them, not the other way around.

Well until they end up more on the road and some douche bag decides to mess with them with a laser pointer

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/07/hackers-trick-self-driving-cars-lidar-sensor

Humans really are going to turn into the Wall-E humans, aren't they?

Everything is turning into automation, very boring.

[Titan]

Humans really are going to turn into the Wall-E humans, aren't they?

Everything is turning into automation, very boring.

The more automated cars that are on the road, the more automated left lane huggers there will be. Which will lead me to be doing a hell of a lot more dipping and weaving to get around the automated douche bags

[Kurt Angle]

Welcome to Johnny Cab.