Google's Self Driving Cars: How Safe Could They Really Be?

The cars that have been released by the firm have had around eleven accidents in six years and analysts are thinking whether the cars are really safe or not.

Google’s self-driving cars have become the center of speculation due to many reasons in the past. The cars that the firm has been making were first and foremost raised with the question of safety, whether they will be made to be accident prone or to be designed in a way that it helps avoid any chance of being unsafe.

Even though all the questions asked with the surety of providing safety in the best possible way, in a recent press release, it was heard that the search engine giant reported around 11 accidents that happened in the period of six years which happened in the self-driving cars. All the accidents that took place have been reported to be on a little scale, and they have emerged to be due to human error and not the fault of the cars, according to the tech giant’s believe.

California’s government was recently seen to have announced an official test to be carried out of the autonomous cars and since then around three of the eleven accidents have taken place. Another one was reported to have taken place in October, where the driver was using Delphi Automotive technology to drive his autonomous car. All these accidents that have taken place, despite the fact that Google is persistent that they happened to be minor and nothing serious, have raised concerns among the analysts about if the cars made by the firm are safe or not.

Eleven accidents in six years is not a huge number keeping in mind the long time period and according to a spokesperson from the driverless car program of Google, it has been explained that most of the times that an accident took place, it was due to the other cars who hit the autonomous cars from behind, mainly when the traffic lights had directed all the cars to halt. Almost all the accidents, as explained by the spokesperson of the search engine giant on a blogging platform, have been reported to have taken place on the streets and not on the highway which is another plus point to be considered for the tech giant.

However, one thing that should be taken into consideration, is that now the Californian state has announced it for all the companies working towards released autonomous cars is that now all they have to do sign a bond worth $5 million which is in case the cars make any damage to life and property. Even though according to law, all the accidents that take place whether they happen by human error or by the machine’s mistake, Google cars has recently proposed that only those accidents should be reported that take place due to a mistake carried out by a machine.