Will Self-Driving Vehicles become the Norm?
Do you remember watching Sleeper (1973), starring Woody Allen, or Total Recall (the original version) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger? In Sleeper, Allen plays a man that was frozen back in the 70’s and is thawed out in 2173. Total Recall, on the other hand, involves a man who is haunted by a recurring dream about a journey to Mars. Both movies depict cars of the future, which include self-driving vehicles. At the time these movies were created, the idea of an automated car seemed unrealistic, however, it looks like we are well on our way, and ahead of the movie predictions, to making this concept a reality with Google’s self-driving cars.
Top Image: Sleeper with Woody Allen (photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/cunningba); Bottom Image: Total Recall (photo from http://www.telegraph.co.uk)
In 2010, when Google first announced the company’s self-driving vehicles, the cars had successfully logged 140,000 miles without incident. Most recently, Google announced that the cars have driven more than 300,000 miles without a single accident while under computer control. While they have made a lot of progress, there is still a long way to go before we’ll see these on the roads. There is also the question of whether these cars are safer than human driven vehicles. You can read more about these cars here.
Photo from news.yahoo.com
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