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Driverless Cars

Google cars will sometimes exceed speed limit, says lead software engineer

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By John McCarthy | Opinion Editor

August 19, 2014 | 2 min read

Google’s self-driving cars will be capable of exceeding national speed limits by up to 10mph in certain danger situations, according to the project's lead software engineer.

The cars will initially be restricted to 25mph in the UK

Dmitri Dolgov, lead software engineer of the Google prototype, said the automated cars have been programmed to speed up when other speeding drivers present a danger, especially in situations where it would be otherwise dangerous to slow down.

The two-seated Google cars were first announced in May this year and will be legal for UK roads from January 2015. However, in Britain, the cars will initially be limited to speeds of 25mph as ministers rush to adapt current road regulations for the new technology.

Additionally, the search engine giant will be building its own smart cars instead of providing software and technology for other auto brands such as Honda.

Addressing safety concerns, Google said that as more fully automated cars hit the road, more vehicles will be communicating with each other via radio signals - removing human error-induced mistakes from the equation.

Dolgov told Reuters: “Thousands and thousands of people are killed in car accidents every year. This could change that."

This comes after cyber security firm KPMG, in May, claimed fully automated cars would be vulnerable to attack from hackers to create what it calls ‘spam jams’.

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