California is the Next Station for Self-driving Cars

Nov 1
15:35

2012

Jordan Perch

Jordan Perch

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The following is an article on the subject of driverless cars and their usage on public roads. Also you will find some interesting information about the new traffic laws in California related to driverless cars.

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The concept of driverless cars has existed for a couple of years now,California is the Next Station for Self-driving Cars Articles but it wasn't until recently that such a car was legally allowed to be used on public roads. It happened a couple of months ago in Nevada, which was the first state to provide legislature regarding autonomous vehicles. The Google driverless car first such vehicle that was approved for testing in traffic among other vehicles.

Now, the driverless car is coming to California. California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill in late September which will allow self-driving cars to come to the streets of big cities, such as Los Angeles, Sacramento or San Francisco. Although not the first state to do this kind of venture, California's size and high profile should help increase the popularity of the autonomous cars concept and make other manufacturers invest more and more in such vehicles.

Google has created cars that operate using cameras and sensors and don't need anyone to sit behind the wheel. Still, one or two persons are required to be in the car at all times in this early experimental phase, just in case there is a problem with the computer-controlled devices.

The bill passed by California lawmakers should help set safety standards regarding driverless vehicles. These cars should definitely improve traffic safety, because they would eliminate the possibility of a driver causing an accident by being careless or simply as a result of poor driving skills. If there are more such cars on the streets, they would be able to communicate to each other and share information on the speed they are moving at and the distance between them, so that they can stop if they are too close to each other and there is a risk of an accident.

Apart from these obvious benefits, Google's driverles cars' creators say that self-driving cars should help increase mobility for people with disabilities as well as older people, they would decrease pollution and ease traffic congestion.

In spite of all these improvements these vehicles would bring to our lives, a lot of people would still probably be sceptic about it and won't have enough faith in the fully computerized cars and will want to continue having control over the vehicle while driving. Those people are perhaps not well aware that most vehicles today already rely greatly on computer software and electronics. Some pretty intricate technologies are in use in many cars nowadays, such as lane-departure warning systems and assisted parking systems, that help drivers a great deal.

Like it or not, those cars are becoming a reality and we'll be watching a lot more driverless cars on our streets in the future.

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