There's Still One Major Problem With Google's Self
While the idea of simply hopping into a car, pressing a button, and arriving at your destination sounds enticing, we're still far away from that type of simplicity.
Although Google's self-driving cars have successfully driven more than 700,000 miles, mistakes and new additions to maps and unmapped areas could potentially pose a problem, as MIT Technology Review points out.
For example, MIT notes that if a self-driving car encountered a new traffic light that wasn't accounted for on a map, that car might not be able to react properly. The car would slow down or stop if its on-board sensors noticed any traffic or obstacles nearby, however, which would likely prevent accidents or injuries.
That said, if the road is clear and the car doesn't 'see' the new traffic light, this could result in tickets and traffic citations for the owner of the car if the vehicle happened to get caught running a red light.
Google is making efforts towards eliminating these types of problems. Although Google's self-driving cars can't detect new trafflic lights that appear overnight, they can respond to stop signs that aren't on the map, according to MIT. Since we initially published this story, Google has reached out to MIT to clarify that its cars can identify almost all unmapped signs.
Google also told Business Insider that new traffic lights are also less of an issue than unmapped traffic signs. While traffic signs are road-effective as soon as they're put up, there's usually a gap between when traffic lights are built and when they become fully functional. Google says it could take a month or more for a traffic light to become functional after its installed, which gives their cars plenty of time to register this information and report it to Google.
The company anticipates this issue of unmapped traffic lights will become less of a problem in the future.
Even so, rolling out its self-driving car system nationwide could prove to be an enormous task for Google. So far, maps for Google's self-driving cars have only been designed to handle a few thousand miles of roadway, as MIT notes. Google would have to maintain and update millions of miles of roads across the country to truly make autonomous vehicles safe enough for everyday use.
That's not to say there isn't a future for driverless vehicles. Once Google works out the kinks, driverless cars could easily prevent accidents caused by drunk driving. They could also potentially serve as a more flexible travel option for the visually impaired.
Still, there's no telling how long it will be until the technology is refined enough to become part of our everyday lives.
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