Driving may become a thing of the past: Google has logged 300,000 miles in its self driving cars without any accidents under computer control. Considering the number of accidents that even the most careful drivers have, this is a significant achievement.
Although we may not see this kind of technology here in the Philippines for a while, we might as well pursue it considering the number of accidents motorists get into each year, along with traffic congestion and other factors that make driving a hassle in the Metro Manila area.
However, Google admits that its technology still needs some work. “We’re encouraged by this progress, but there’s still a long road ahead. To provide the best experience we can, we’ll need to master snow-covered roadways, interpret temporary construction signals and handle other tricky situations that many drivers encounter,” Google said in its official blog.
Some people, however, still think that 300,000 miles is still too low to consider the project a success: “Google’s cars would need to drive themselves (by themselves) more than 725,000 representative miles without incident for us to say with 99 percent confidence that they crash less frequently than conventional cars. If we look only at fatal crashes, this minimum skyrockets to 300 million miles,” said Bryant Walker Smith of Stanford Law School.
Although the idea of a car driving itself seemed like a far-off fantasy as early as the beginning of this century, it is steadily making progress.