Home | Newsletter | Advertise
loading...

Taking a Spin in a Self-Driving Car

  • March 30th 2012

by Shilpi Paul

We’ve been hearing rumblings about self-driving cars for awhile. Google has been riding them around California and Nevada, computer scientists are visualizing intersections full of them, and lots of people are singing their praises. Now, we get to see one in action.

Hands-free driving. Courtesy of YouTube.

Somehow, watching a video of one man in a self-driving car makes a world full of them seem much more feasible. Check out this video of a blind man taking one of Google’s self-driving cars out on the town. He runs errands, picks up food and seems totally comfortable sitting in the driver’s seat with nothing to do. “Where this would change my life is to give me the independence and flexibility to go the places I want to go and need to go,” he says.

Some people estimate that self-driving cars will be widely available within the decade. Cars have been automating for a few decades now, and in many ways this is just the next logical jump up from a path that began with automatic transmission and now includes crash prevention, parallel parking assistance, and pedestrian detection systems.

Wired has an extensive report on driverless cars here. From the sound of it, road rage and fender benders may soon be a distant memory.

See other articles related to: google, self-driving cars, transportation

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/self-driving_cars_really_happening/5354.

DC Real Estate Guides

Short guides to navigating the DC-area real estate market

We've collected all our helpful guides for buying, selling and renting in and around Washington, DC in one place. Visit guides.urbanturf.com or start browsing below!

First-Timer Primers

Intro guides for first-time home buyers

Red Flags Revealed During a Home Inspection Top 5 Tax Breaks For Homeowners Tax Relief for DC Homeowners
Condo Fee Tutorial What is a Rent Back? 10 Ways To Tell If a Home Renovation is Well Done
Obtaining a Basic Business License For Your Rental What is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage? The Splitting the Rent Formula
How Much Cash Do You Need to Buy a House? Is This Condo Building Financially Healthy? Interest Rates and Mortgage Points
The Scoop on Mortgage Insurance

Unique Spaces

Awesome and unusual real estate from across the DC Metro

The Most Intriguing Loft in DC The R Street Firehouse DC’s One-Room House
Dupont Circle’s Old Frat House To Become Alley Home Best Transition From a Garage To a Home The Roundhouse
Tilden Gardens Restaurant-Turned-Home Hits Market Next Week Logan Circle’s Most Intriguing Garage Frank Lloyd Wright Goes Green in Kensington
Sears Bungalow Gets a Modern Makeover Old Town General Store Becomes Three-Level Home Making the Most of a Skinny House
A Studio 27 Renovation on Capitol Hill Once a Carriage House, Now a Home The Bank that Became a Home
From Pie to Hooch to Heroin to Home The Live-Aboards of Gangplank Marina A Treehouse with Rock Creek Park As A Backyard
Modern Tranquility in Sperryville Saddle Up For Stable Living Throwing a Curve at 550 Square Feet
A Modern Hilltop Retreat Tilden Street Restaurant Becomes Spacious Home Focus on Design: A Vastu Unit at 22 West
The DC Area’s First Net Zero Home A Yankee Goes Green DC’s First Carbon Neutral Home
Eco-Friendly Alley House Off H Street The Gym, The Stables and The Firehouse