Self-Driving cars are in the news more and more these days and that is for one simple reason, they are coming. You can see as time goes on just how many more car manufacturers are getting involved in the autonomous vehicle game. Audi is a prime example of this, creating an autonomous car that drove all the way from Palo Alto to Las Vegas, a 500-mile trip. The vehicle had some journalists in it, but it drove almost all 500 of those miles with no human intervention.
Since self-driving cars were first introduced to the world, they have been much improved. So much so that Google, arguably the leader in self-driving cars, felt it was safe enough to release their self-driving cars onto the roads in Mountain View, California. Of course, these cars will have both drivers and steering wheels in them to make drivers on the road feel safer. These vehicles also top out at 25mph just as an added layer of safety. So far there have been no issues or accidents caused by Google’s self-driving cars on the roads of Mountain View, but there has been one smaller ordeal. Drivers in Mountain View don’t seem to be very fond of these self-driving cars. One anonymous motorcyclist said that the cars “drive like your grandma,” meaning that they are overly-cautious and actually travel at the speed limit.
The next state that Google’s self-driving cars will be hitting the roads in is Virginia. Here, Google’s self-driving cars will have access to over 70 miles of highway, apparently including some of the country’s most crowded and congested roads. This is all being done for research purposes and will be overseen by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Before this all happens though, Google’s self-driving cars must first prove themselves. They will be hitting the test track located at the Virginia International Raceway. Here the self-driving cars will be tested so that they can be certified to be allowed on Virginia’s roads. If Google’s self-driving cars do indeed make it onto Virginia’s public roads, that will make Virginia the 6th state in the US to allow self-driving cars onto their highways. But, Virginia could prove a unique location for Google and their self-driving cars. There is potential for Google to learn a lot if their self-driving cars are on some of the most congested roads in the country that are in Virginia.