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."

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow up. They have done 200,000 miles with a person sat in the driver's seat to ensure he can take control if anything went wrong. On a pre-programmed route this is a very stable system and he had someone beside him in the passenger seat (I also wouldn't be surprised if it was dual-control so the passenger has access to a brake pedal). Meanwhile this technology could eventually change the lives of millions upon millions of disabled people, damn right it deserves the publicity. With your attitude we'd never have wheelchairs or crutches or surgery, all things which, the first time out, could have resulted in injury but have been life changing tech for millions.

Too true

[Kupfernigk]

Many years ago, in the UK, my wife volunteered to do the school crossing patrol. She was nearly killed (along with several kids) when a man drove straight across the crossing without slowing down. But she got the number and called the police.

Later she was called to the police station to make a statement. The police had arrested the driver. He said he had not seen the crossing because there was thick fog (mildly overcast). Then they discovered that he was registered partially sighted. He had cataracts.

He was convicted of:

• Careless driving
• Driving while unfit
• Driving while uninsured (because his insurance was invalid from the moment he lied on the form).

His comment to my wife at the police station? "You've spoiled my day". He simply did not realise how serious his offense was.

So I applaud what Google is doing, because I've worked with computers for nearly 35 years, and human beings for over 40, and if the system is designed I would trust the computer over the human being any day of the week, and double on Sundays (drunks with hangovers).

Re:In other news...

[RoboJ1M]

They can also drive safely millimetres (like inches but smaller) apart from each other, massively increasing the capacity of the existing road network.
I've seen that thing MERGE WITH MOTORWAY (freeway right?) TRAFFIC!!! 8@~~
It's bonkers clever. I want one. Where we all just sit around the table inside it having breakfast.

Re:human factor

[RivenAleem]

Well, I hope they are thinking more long term, where all cars on the road are automatically driven, and in constant communication with eachother. Then you only have to worry about the pavement, which can be partially solved by erecting foot-high barriers.

What I think would be the biggest issue is cyclists griefing the cars by passing in front of them or riding up really close to their side, as the car will be programmed to avoid or stop when ANYTHING on the road could be at risk, or put them at risk.

I guess cars will have to be fitted with deterrents (tranq dart guns) to deal with griefers.

The vast majority of collisions between cars and people happen in carparks and people reversing out of their driveways.

When you think about it, once everywhere has selfdriving cars (once it is governmentally mandated that all cars on the road must be self drive) then you do away with the traffic corps, signalling at junctions, speeding cameras and all the cost that goes along with maintaining all that and set up proper cycle routes and barriers to separate traffic from pedestrians.

Courts no longer have to deal with DUIs or speeding tickets, again reducing the cost to the government, and it stops people getting killed, which is a net tax gain, I think...

No, once self driving takes off properly, you are then able to make a whole lot of other changes that will prevent the situations that you predict.

Next time you are 20 cars back at a traffic light junction, count the length of time from when the light turns green to when you get to move off. Is it possible that you don't even get to get through the junction if you are that far back? Now imagine if all 20 cars are computer driven. Light turns green, Every Car Moves Together. Journeys are greatly reduced, there are much much fewer cars on the road at the same time because everyone got to where they were going already. Areas of road that are completely walled off from outside so no cyclist or pedestrian can interfere has convoys of cars 10cm apart doing 150 kph. Nobody ever is stopped because cross roads are gone, replaced with roundabouts where every car knows in advance where all the other cars are going to be and can adjust the speed so they hit the junction just at the right time, when no other car is in their path.

That's what self driving cars means. And if you think that we should throw that away because your intuition is better than engineering a system that make such accidents impossible, then I accuse you of being very narrow minded.