Google’s self-driving cars can ‘exceed the speed limit to aid safety’

According to Google's lead software engineer, Dmitri Dolgov, the company’s self-driving cars are programmed to stay within the speed limit, mostly. Research shows that sticking to the speed limit when other cars are going much faster actually can be dangerous, Dolgov says, so its autonomous car can go up to 10 mph (16 kph) above the speed limit when traffic conditions warrant. Dolgov told Reuters during a test drive that when surrounding vehicles were breaking the speed limit, going more slowly could act
August 20, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

According to 1691 Google's lead software engineer, Dmitri Dolgov, the company’s self-driving cars are programmed to stay within the speed limit, mostly. Research shows that sticking to the speed limit when other cars are going much faster actually can be dangerous, Dolgov says, so its autonomous car can go up to 10 mph (16 kph) above the speed limit when traffic conditions warrant.

Dolgov told Reuters during a test drive that when surrounding vehicles were breaking the speed limit, going more slowly could actually present a danger, and the Google car would accelerate to keep up.

"Thousands and thousands of people are killed in car accidents every year," said Dmitri Dolgov, the project's boyish Russian-born lead software engineer, who now is a U.S. citizen, describing his sense of mission. "This could change that."

In July, the UK government announced measures that would give the green light for driverless cars to take to UK roads from January 2015. Ministers also launched a review to look at current road regulations to establish how the UK can remain at the forefront of driverless car technology and ensure there is an appropriate regime for testing driverless cars in the UK.

Commenting on Google self-drive cars' ability to exceed the speed limit, a 1837 Department for Transport spokesman said: "There are no plans to change speed limits, which will still apply to driverless cars."

European Traffic Police Network (650 TISPOL) director Pasi Kemppainen said: "From a UK perspective the Department for Transport has recently started a consultation on autonomous vehicles/telematics and TISPOL will feed into them the additional complications and challenges regarding legislation and enforcement. It is, of course, for Governments to legislate appropriately to cater for such situations, and for police officers to enforce the law."

In a separate development on Monday, the 324 US Department of Transportation's 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed equipping all cars and light trucks with technology that could prevent collisions.

Location Based Systems

Related Content

  • Transport academics call for road user charging
    January 22, 2013
    In an open letter to UK Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, thirty-two leading transport academics have said that in order to cut emissions and tackle congestion the government should introduce pay as you drive road charging. The academics argue that traffic will increase with further investment in the road network. They say smart demand management measures need to be accelerated, while cities are not equipped for further road traffic growth. The previous government considered pay as you go road chargin
    Read More
  • Need for standardisation of toll classes
    March 2, 2012
    In a previous article Bob Lees of Idris Technology Ltd looked at the appropriateness of toll classes in relation to all-electronic toll fee collection. Here, he looks at how addressing classification standardisation could avoid downstream aggravation and cost
    Read More
  • Debating the future of in-vehicle systems
    December 6, 2012
    Industry experts talk to Jason Barnes about the legislative situation of current and future in-vehicle systems. Articles about technology development can have a tendency to reference Moore’s Law with almost indecent regularity and haste but the fact remains that despite predictions of slow-down or plateauing, the pace remains unrelenting. That juxtaposes with a common tendency within the ITS industry: to concentrate on the technology and assume that much else – legislation, business cases and so on – will m
    Read More
  • UK government to invest in autonomous cars, low emission vehicles
    November 24, 2016
    Presenting his Autumn Statement, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced investment in transportation, including £390 million for future transport and a major new investment in the UK transport infrastructure. The £390 million investment in future technology includes: investment in testing infrastructure for driverless cars; provision of at least 550 new electric and hydrogen buses, reduce the emissions of 1,500 existing buses and support taxis to become zero emission; installation of more charging points fo
    Read More

Highlighted Content