The great thing about driving a driverless car is that texting is legal. So is checking the Web for news. And taking notes on a pad.
Henry Payne writes in the Detroit News that he did all three Tuesday morning while testing Google’s self-driving car on public roads in Mountain View, California, near the company’s headquarters. The test was the first time Google has made its car available to the media.
My three-mile drive through crowded city streets went without a hitch as the driverless Lexus negotiated stoplights, straying city buses, crosswalks — and even the odd jaywalker. Indeed, the experience is familiar to anyone who has driven, say, a new Cadillac or Mercedes with adaptive cruise control. The Google car uses similar radar technology that sets a cruise speed (Google’s technology is pegged to speed limits) and then brakes or accelerates as it monitors other vehicles.
What’s different — and a little freaky — is that the Google car does so much more. Like steer.
Rolling out of the Computer History Museum parking lot (a logical place for our drive to begin, no?), the steering wheel spun right like it was piloted by a ghost. At speed on the four-lane Shoreline Boulevard, the wheel rolled left, changing lanes to prepare for a left turn.
