As part of the conference RoboBusiness, dedicated to the issues of Robotics, director of self-cars in Google Chris Urmson (Chris Urmson) shared some information about the safety of robotic vehicles.
Based on the data collected during the operation of self-Lexus vehicles and Prius, Chris Urmson said cars are run better than humans do. In particular, he noted that the automation is driving more smoothly and more securely than the trained professional drivers. Previously, Chris Urmson has already reported that in the self-administered test vehicles covered 482.7 thousand miles without a single accident. The new data show that in the process of driving more people are sharply accelerator and brake, than it does when the car is fully controlled automatically. In addition, robotic vehicles are better maintained a safe distance between other cars.
It is further noted that during the entire testing self-managed Google cars only 2 times become parties to the accident: in 2010 and in 2011. In both cases, there was a collision with a car at the rear. In this case, the two incidents were the fault of the drivers.
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