Google experimenting with self-driving cars

Google revealed it has been testing cars that can drive themselves on the streets of California for months. The company argues these cars may one day improve road safety because computers are supposedly better at driving than humans in the right circumstances. The cars have driven 140,000 miles of Californian road, with only one accident, but this was caused by a human error as one of the cars was rear-ended by a driver at a stop light.

>i>Each car is manned during the tests. One person sits in the driver's seat, ready to take control of the vehicle instantly by grabbing the wheel or touch the brake should something go wrong with the system. The person in the passenger's seat is an engineer who monitors the software operations on a computer.

Google (Google) hired engineers who previously participated in competitions and races involving automated cars -- important turning points in the development of the technology, which has been coming into its own since around 2005 according to The New York Times.

More info at CNN.