Google driverless cars get the green light from Nevada
It seems like science fiction , but the way Google tells it, there's nothing more sensible than the driverless car: you never get lost and you never break the speed limit. Now one American state has bought into Google's arguments
So if you see a Toyota Prius bowling along without anyone at the wheel the next time you’re in Las Vegas , you're not inebriated - Google is in charge, says the website ZDNet.
And if you want to know what it's like being in a driverless car , here's the video:
Nevada Assembly Bill No 511 has two key elements: the first, already passed, provides for the licensing and testing of driverless cars. The second, still in debate, would grant an exemption for texting behind the wheel of the car you’re not actually driving.
In Google road tests in California 140,000 miles have been driven with only limited human intervention..
Specially-adapted Toyota Priuses, all with a human on board, drove from Google's headquarters in Northern California, down the scenic Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Monica. They have driven in San Francisco and across the Golden Gate bridge. On their roofs: funnel-like cylinders on the roof acting as the vehicle's 'eye'.The seven cars used laser range finders and video cameras to detect traffic, and detailed Google maps to find their way from point to point, says the Daily Mail on its website. "Drivers' simply set their destination and the car calculates the route and drives itself there." Lobbyist David Goldwater told Nevada lawmakers that the self-driving cars were safer than those driven by humans and are more fuel efficient. The artificial intelligence technology could eventually halve the 1.2million lives lost each year in road accidents, says Google. The test cars have a person in the driving seat ready to step in if there is a problem and never break the speed limit because the maximum for every road is in the database. The trips have been accident free- except when a human-driven car rear-ended one of the driverless Google cars. "Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use,' is how Sebastian Thrun, the researcher in charge of the project, puts it. "Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps which we collect using manually driven vehicles to navigate the road ahead."