4 so far in accidents out of 48 cars
2 under car control, 2 under human control.
all accidents at less than 10 mph.

I would like to know number of accidents vs miles driven and hours of operation.

I'll take the risk of being in an accident with a self driving car to advance the technology.

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/05/11/self-driving-cars-involved-accidents-california/

Real question is who is gonna pay for it?

And once we get to the point where most, if not all cars are driverless, I think we'll see the end of traffic jams as well.

How does insurance work?

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This is pretty crazy the think about. If it does play out this way, in 100 years everyone will be asking what jack ass thought it was necessary to build 5+ lane highways.

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People are already asking why 5+ lane highways are being built. Unless you're in Dallas, where we're trying to build a tollroad next to two other highways.

I think that driverless cars are an interesting technological advancement. But, the car enthusiast in me is sad at the thought of this becoming normal. I do love driving my own vehicle.

What is a driverless car going to do to mitigate the volume of cars on the road at any given point in time? Municipalities aren't going to start letting people take back roads or neighborhood streets to avoid traffic on 290. If the cars start making those decisions you'll see local authorities fight back to keep that traffic on the major roads. You're still going to have way too many cars during rush hour.

And they'd do a better job of merging.

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From what i understand it isn't the volume of cars that leads to traffic jams but rather the poor decisions drivers make that are multiplied when there are a lot of cars on the road causing problems. If everyone were to stay in the same lane until the needed to exit and left rome between the vehicles in front and behind them traffic jams would be greatll minimized. Rather we have people swerving lanes like it will magically make things move faster causing a chain reaction of people hitting their brakes and leading to traffic.

Driverless cars wouldn't have this issue and neither is a car driving itself going to have an issue of rubbernecking when there is an accident on the other side of the highway.

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This.

Some of the worst traffic in Houston is on the stretch of I-45 connecting Galveston to Houston. There is tons of construction going on, but no lane closures at all. And EVERY time I get on the damn thing, unless it's some odd hour of night, it's stop and go traffic.

Once you pass the construction, it opens up. Because 100% of the reason for the traffic is people being morons and watching everything but the road.

Interesting. Sounds like you confirmed what I've long thought that traffic is caused by slow drivers! LOL

The only big issue with driverless cars is what happens when 90% of the cars on the road are driverless and 10% are still human controlled. Is that driverless car going to be able to anticipate or react to someone driving 100mph, weaving in and out of traffic or other dangerous and reckless driving?

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This is pretty crazy the think about. If it does play out this way, in 100 years everyone will be asking what jack ass thought it was necessary to build 5+ lane highways.

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People are already asking why 5+ lane highways are being built. Unless you're in Dallas, where we're trying to build a tollroad next to two other highways.

I think that driverless cars are an interesting technological advancement. But, the car enthusiast in me is sad at the thought of this becoming normal. I do love driving my own vehicle.

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yes, but do you love driving ALL THE TIME...in traffic, etc....

I would imagine it would be a long while before we are not driving at all. I can see the day where we let cars drive us around the city, to work, etc. in traffic....but go for a Sunday drive in the country or on some wide open roads for fun.

Of course how long after that will it be before they mandate driverless cars and outlaw driving (Rush "Red Barchetta" anyone???).

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The only big issue with driverless cars is what happens when 90% of the cars on the road are driverless and 10% are still human controlled. Is that driverless car going to be able to anticipate or react to someone driving 100mph, weaving in and out of traffic or other dangerous and reckless driving?

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presumably they do it now when MORE of them are human driven....why would they suddenly lose that capability?

thre is more randomness now than there will be when 90% are driverless.

i wouldn't think they would remove that type of logic from the programming...they are not sentient machines that learn (and forget)...

Traffic jams also caused by trucks pulling heavy loads. In Austin there are a couple spots where it always slows down on I35 because there are a couple decent elevation changes and the trucks will slow down big time trying to climb the hill. Happens to me too when I'm pulling my trailer and a big load... I'm not gonna max out the RPMs in my half-ton just to stay at 65 up the hill.

But I agree, lots could be solved with a perfectly automated system. Red lights are a perfect example... at heavy intersections it's always a slow process of 1 car at a time starting to accelerate. If every single car could go at the same time & same speed everybody would start moving when the light turns green... instead of waiting for the 15 cars in front of you to gradually start going, 4 of which are busy texting and don't realize the light is green.

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Traffic jams also caused by trucks pulling heavy loads. In Austin there are a couple spots where it always slows down on I35 because there are a couple decent elevation changes and the trucks will slow down big time trying to climb the hill. Happens to me too when I'm pulling my trailer and a big load... I'm not gonna max out the RPMs in my half-ton just to stay at 65 up the hill.

But I agree, lots could be solved with a perfectly automated system. Red lights are a perfect example... at heavy intersections it's always a slow process of 1 car at a time starting to accelerate. If every single car could go at the same time & same speed everybody would start moving when the light turns green... instead of waiting for the 15 cars in front of you to gradually start going, 4 of which are busy texting and don't realize the light is green.

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i've always thought about that - the ability to start at the same time and maintain closer distances. that is a huge factor.

but even for "human comfort" of not tailgating too close so passengers are not freaking out...a delay of 1/10 of a second as detected by computer (easily done) before accelerating and then maintaining half of the normal human driver distance which would be safe - would be a dramatic effect.

someone needs to run some computer models on entire cities given traffic volume at different times and factor in using computer driven cars....would probabaly be very impressive. maybe it has been done but i haven't seen it in a wide example with data, just hyperbole.

I've always thought that instead of making the HOV lanes for more than two people that they should change it to just big trucks. They are the ones that have and cause a lot of problems in high density areas, I feel like creating their own lane would mitigate that effect.

why would there be a need for red lights any more? the cars could talk to each other and adjust speeds to zip through intersections at 100 mph and miss the cross traffic by inches or a few feet so the passengers don't panic

My guess is we'll see cars that can self drive in designated areas at first, like major highways.

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"Google and Delphi said their cars were not at fault in any accidents, which the companies said were minor. Five other companies have testing permits. In response to questions from the AP, all said they had no accidents. In all, 48 cars are licensed to test on public roads."

Why is this news if not the fault of the self driving car?

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I've read more than one article that "forgets" to include this point, and just tries to make the case that the cars aren't any safer.

I've imagined a city having a fleet of driverless cars that everyone in the city leases. You put in where you want to go and when, and a car arrives, and carpools you and someone else going similar places. Software would know how many people are at an activity, when it ends, where everyone is going after, and how many cars to have waiting when the activity ends.

I don't think some people will ever want to stop driving cars. But it will become like riding horses is now. Only people that really want to, at designed tracks or on not highly trafficked roads. Kind of weird to think my grandkids might never lean to drive.

I think earliest adoption will be in the trucking industry. You can have computers take loads between cities on highways and have humans take over inside cities to start. Given the shortage of drivers and the ability to have cargo moving 24/7 between cities it make a lot of sense.

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I think earliest adoption will be in the trucking industry. You can have computers take loads between cities on highways and have humans take over inside cities to start. Given the shortage of drivers and the ability to have cargo moving 24/7 between cities it make a lot of sense.

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plus the physical toll of driving many hours and the regulations to limit that...with driverless trucks, cargo can drive 24/7 nonstop except for fuel of course. that would be a big cost savings too (manpower and labor)

I think there will be major political push from the auto makers to stop this from happening. If you take out the sport of driving it makes it much harder to sell the nicer vehicles.

However I think within a decade the clear advantage of automation for safety and efficacy will be overwhelming and it will be a standard feature by 2025.

It makes sense inside cities and for highways. But what about off road, towing, etc? I think it'll be a feature but with a manual mode remaining for such use cases. It'll be a few decades before most vehicles on the road are fully automated.

Sign me up.

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And they'd do a better job of merging.

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They also won't be putting on makeup while eating.

Imagine how much easier parking would be. Get out. Send car to some remote lot.