Blind Man Test Drives Google's Autonomous Car

Velcroman1 writes "'This is some of the best driving I've ever done,' Steve Mahan said the other day. Mahan was behind the wheel of a Toyota Prius tooling the small California town of Morgan Hill in late January, a routine trip to pick up the dry cleaning and drop by the Taco Bell drive-in for a snack. He also happens to be 95 percent blind. Mahan, head of the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center, 'drove' along a specially programmed route thanks to Google's autonomous driving technology. Google announced the self-driving car project in 2010. It relies upon laser range finders, radar sensors, and video cameras to navigate the road ahead, in order to make driving safer, more enjoyable and more efficient — and clearly more accessible. In a Wednesday afternoon post on Google+, the company noted that it has hundreds of thousands of miles of testing under its belt, letting the company feel confident enough in the system to put Mahan behind the wheel."

Blind Spot

[coinreturn]

"'This is some of the best driving I've ever done,' Steve Mahan said the other day.

I guess he usually uses those pavement reflector thingies to drive by braille.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely an autonomous car can react quicker to an obstacle running in front of it faster than a human can.

And given the average human's driving ability, it probably fares no worse when it comes to being in the correct lane at complex junctions.

Maybe it will need two more orders of magnitude of testing and refinement before it can be included in cars that the blind person can be alone in, but progress is progress, and this is surely a milestone?

Of course I will jailbreak my car when it comes with such technology, so that I can add my own AI modules, such as "HunterKillerMod" that turns the car into a pedestrian killing machine. And "DestroyAllCyclists" too, obviously (who won't have that installed?).

Re:human factor

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The google car not only knows to slow down, it displays a tasteful unobtrusive contextual advertisement, based on the type of play being conducted, to the kid as it drives past...

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that you? Sorry, I was trying to get FP...

Re:In other news...

[jamesh]

I don't know if there is but from what I understand, this thing is incredibly intelligent.

If it was truly smart it would stay in the garage and never come out. Driving is a curious game, the only way to win is not to play.

Finally the ATM's will be used!

[John3]

The drive-up ATM's at Citibank branches in the NY area have had Braille labels on all the buttons for years. Seemed kind of silly up until now, you certainly would not want a blind person standing in the driveway using the ATM, and I certainly hope a person requiring Braille labels on an ATM would not be behind the wheel of a car. Not knowing Braille myself, I always assumed the labels said "Get out of the way!!! You're standing in a driveway!!!".

But now I realize that Citibank was preparing for the eventual release of the autonomous car.

Re:human factor

[Beerdood]

Speaking of reacting to situations, what if a nearby driver cuts you off or makes a bonehead move that almost results in an accident with your vehicle? Can we expect some sort of autonomous honking combined with some robotic middle finger deployment? It would be nice if I didn't have to express my own road rage - that would look a little silly coming from the passenger or back seat.