December 2, 2015
We here at Auto Publishers pride ourselves at staying ahead of the latest trends affecting the automotive world. One of the points we’ve been consistent about is that a future with self-driving vehicles in it will soon be upon us. While that may sound awesome in the abstract (or perhaps scary, depending on your point of view), there are still plenty of legal issues to be worked out, to say nothing of moral and ethical concerns that will be familiar to classic science fiction fans. Before we as a society address those problems, auto engineers will have to rectify and refine the nuts-and-bolts operations of self-driving vehicles. In particular, they’re investigating ways to make these vehicles safer for passengers without endangering others. The Google Self-Driving Car Project recently disclosed that it built motion sensors into its self-driving vehicles that automatically stop when they detect people and other vehicles. The tech giant took another huge step toward vehicle safety by filing a patent that would alert pedestrians of a self-driving vehicle’s intent. As reported by The Washington Post, details of Google’s patent plans include a loudspeaker mounted on its self-driving vehicles that would issue directives like “coming through” or “safe to cross.” Electronic signage would be installed that announce the intentions of its vehicles on the road. For instance, if one of Google’s cars elected to stop, then flashing red stop signs would appear on all of its sides. This last bit dovetails in interesting ways with Google’s Paint the Town project, in which the company solicited local artists to paint panoramic urban scenes on its vehicles. For instance, can you imagine Hong Li’s bucolic scene interrupted by an urgent stop sign? As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words—if that’s the case, then these Google self-driving vehicles will tell entire stories with every commute. Image Credit: Digital Spy