5.15.2012

Taking a Spin in the Google Self Driving Car

This morning, my friend who works at Google emailed me, "Hey, do you want to take a ride in the Google self-driving car today?" Um. Yessssssssssssssssss.

me and the google car guys...
It was pretty bad ass. We took a hands-free spin around the block and it deftly dodged city buses and over eager pedestrians. And, being DC we were spotted by one of the nation's leading urban transportation experts who was excited and whipped out his phone to photo op us at a stop light!

The driver has an override if they want to take over at any moment. The computer on the right shows the visualization of the street. Cool stuff.

This was my view from the backseat.
Have you spotted it on the street? Do you think auto-driving cars would be safer than human-driven cars? This one definitely stopped if someone inched so much as a toe into the cross walk.

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