A
recent article has pulled back the curtain surrounding some of the mystery of the Google self-driving car. Instead of processing road conditions and obstacles in real-time, as they happen, the
Google car is following a pre-plotted virtual track that has been laid out for it on specified roads. The car still has to react to dynamic and spontaneous events, such as a pedestrian walking out in front of it, or even other human drivers, but I just wanted to help clear the air about what the technology is really capable of, including its limits. As of 2014, there are 2,000 miles "mapped" for Google Car to use, however they also boast that there have been 700,000 miles driven. This means that the same 2,000 mile route has been driven 350 times, it doesn't mean that you could send the Google car off for 700,000 miles alone and it would never crash. The technology of course is still very cutting-edge and impressive, but there's still a lot of work left before they "take over the roads" as everyone seems to be concerned about.
Some questions regarding laws that will be affected by the automated cars include:
Orange - Unanswered Questions
Red - New Problem Created
Green - Problems Solved
- Gas/maintenance/repair cost
Who will be responsible for the fuel and maintenance of the vehicle? Will the manufacturer program the vehicle with alerts of low fuel and drive itself to the gas station and fill up? Will it be fully electric? Will the passenger be required to pay for the service to cover the cost of gas?
Will people be allowed to enter the vehicle drunk? What if they abuse the controls in the vehicle (emergency stop, etc) Can they bring open containers into the vehicle? Why or why not?
This issue would be eliminated entirely from society. Prove me wrong.
Also would not be a problem anymore.
The car would always be following the same path, driving at the same speed. There would be no cases of a wildly swerving, out of control Google car flying through neighborhood streets. There would be a lot of wreckless driving though, because there wouldn't be any wrecks!
Who would the insurance fall under? Would passengers have to pay for insurance while they're in transit? Would Google only be liable for the health of the passenger and damage to the car? WHat if someone with no other form of transportation wanted to commit a crime, and used the Google car as the getaway vehicle?
Senior citizens who are unable to drive any longer would be able to have their freedom back. I live in South Florida so I see alot of really bad older drivers and I also see this as another point which would cut down on accident
I counted this as a potential "problem" because younger people, who typically get to experience driving as young as 16, would not have a chance at learning how to drive. They would just sit in the car and go. Eventually we would be phasing out all skills and sense of awareness most of us only use while driving. We would always have video games, though.
How could we prove a system malfunction in a Google car? What if two of them crashed? Who would defend or represent the Google car system in a court of law if something ever happened? I listed this as a problem and not a question because it creates the problem of figuring this out, and it is one of the most important problems that should have been solved long before this venture met the pavement.
- Parking/need for Parking Lots
Solved with simple math and accounting for annual tourism numbers. The only problem with this plan is that people would have to be willing to carpool, and the Google cars would have to increase in size for mass transit. You wouldn't need parking lots because the car would stop at the curb to unload passengers, it wouldn't need to park anywhere other than its own car lot, or if there were some type of "Park & Wait" program built into this plan.
Future Considerations:
- Jurassic Park vehicles/Theme park transportation
Let's remember the cars from Jurassic Park. They were on physical tracks, but we're talking about the same thing. We could use these cars on tours (such as Lion Country Safari down here in Florida) or any other zoos or wild adventure setting (think African Safari tours, or other dangerous places). Taking driving out of the equation, you could focus on enjoying the ride and snapping pictures. You could use it for long distance applications also, a 5-hour trip to Key West? No problem. Not as much planning required, and you won't have to worry about missing that exit anymore either.
- Partial self-driving traffic
Let's say 50% of the population are manual drivers, the other 50% are automated Google cars. What problems would arise? Well, we've had a preview of the interaction, and the only accidents that have happened were because a human rear-ended the Google car. Things would still be somewhat inefficient because the 50% human drivers would still be a bottleneck to the system. Traffic would operate at full efficiency with 100% automated cars.
- Fully self-driving traffic
With 100% of the cars on the road being fully automated, there wouldn't be a purpose for traffic lights. Think about it, the lights are only to inform humans about what the other lanes are doing, because we can't know or calculate that sort of thing ourselves. But a Google car can. A Google car could see another one coming, and perform calculations (by adjusting speed) to avoid the other cars. In this way, traffic would constantly flow through each other without ever contacting one another (though it may come very close) Cars would only need to come to a full stop when they are dropping off their passengers, as traffic jams would be non-existent (or avoidable)
Hardware used:
Light Detection And Ranging (Lidar remote sensing/visual sonar)
Velodyne 64-beam laser (to generate 3D visual map)
Sources:
Why Google's self-driving car will fail
How does Google's self-driving car work?
Google's Official Blog Post from 2010
Google's Official Blog Post from 2014
Who gets the traffic ticket?
Mapping out tracks for Google cars 