Google engineers tested a self-driving car

Take backseat, Google car drives by itself

 

Engineers said forays onto the highways have been largely incident-free

London: Internet giant Google will soon launch a car that can drive by itself. Google engineers tested a self-driving car on the streets of California and covered 1,40,000 miles on the road, BBC said on Sunday.

The cars use video cameras mounted on the roof, radar sensors and a laser range finder to look out for traffic, software engineer Sebastian Thrun said.

There is, however, a trained driver in stand-by mode, ready to take control.

The cars have crossed San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate bridge, negotiated the city's famous sloping streets, driven between Google offices, and made it around Lake Tahoe in one piece.

Engineers told the New York Times that the forays onto the highways have been largely incident-free, apart from one bump when the car was reportedly hit from behind at a traffic light.

Thrun, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University, said safety was the first priority in the project.

Routes are pre-planned, mapped first by real drivers, and local police are briefed in advance, he said.

He pointed to figures from the World Health Organisation that over 1.2 million people were killed each year on the roads, and said that number could be reduced.

"We believe our technology has the potential to cut that number, perhaps by as much as half. It provides a glimpse of what transportation might look like in the future thanks to advanced computer science. And that future is very exciting," he said.