Car insurance news
Googlebots the drivers of the future?
There is some unusual and exciting news on the possible future of cars. In some years' time people might be swapping car insurance information with a robot in the event of a car accident.
Currently, technical researchers at Google are working on self-driving cars. The drivers, called Googlebots, drive their Googlemobiles without any human input. There are seven automated cars in existence, and they have already been out on the roads for testing which has been going on for several months in America.
Sebastian Thrun, the man behind the project said that the Googlemobiles have already been driven a fair distance. They have gone down Hollywood Boulevard, crossed the Golden Gate bridge and navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, which is quite a trek for a car without a living driver.
Of course, for safety's sake, all the Googlemoblies are staffed by an engineer ready to take over the driving if something goes wrong.
These automated cars use Google's extensive collection of data, video cameras and radar sensors to keep them going in the right direction. To stop them bumping into anything they have a range-finding laser which sees the traffic around the Googlemobile.
The reason behind this apparent madness is a bid to make driving more relaxing. The hope is that in the future the Googlebot will drive for its human so that they can chat on the phone, catch up with work on their laptop, read a book, or even get some shut-eye.
So far there has only been one accident, and it was the fault of a human road user who crashed into the back of the car. Swapping car insurance details with a Googlebot can't be easy.
Maybe in the future, if Googlemobiles are the norm, it will be even easier to get really cheap car insurance, since it appears that Googlebots may turn out to be very safe, reliable drivers.