Google car has just hit the road! The news has been on air for quite a fair amount of time that Google is on its way to make a driverless car. The car, as the idea has been put, would be run by a GPS system and have sensors for direction and to locate the traffic. Since the car would be autonomic, there would be fewer chances for accidents.
Google engineers have brought forward various models and prototypes of cars combined with self-driving technologies in the past. However, this time, as the engineers have put in their words “We’ve now put all those systems together in this fully functional vehicle—our first complete prototype for fully autonomous driving.”
The car is complete with sensor-filled systems and programs. The software powering Google's cars is called Google Chauffeur. It can make its driving decisions based on reality such as slowing down for pedestrians, watching out for other cars, looking out for gestures by cyclists when they are about to take a turn etc. Also, the car watches out for objects at a distance of more than two football fields, which makes it obviously more skilful than a human driver.
Researchers and analysts have advocated that Google cars are about to be the safest vehicle on the road and an advantage to the society. While these self-driving cars would reduce crashes, ease congestion, improve fuel economy, reduce parking needs, would also help to transport disable patients and children and visually impaired people.
However, one concern that is still bugging the lawyers is who will be liable for accidents by self-driving car. Would it be the car owner or the car company? While legislators are still debating on whether to let self-driving cars hit the road, the state of California had already passed this law back in 2012. As a result of this Google aims to let its car roam around the streets of Northern California in the coming New Year.