Google ‘shut down’ self-driving car tests over sleeping drivers

Some drivers were seen applying makeup and
‘hunting for cables’ behind the wheel

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During the early phases of trialling the company’s autonomous
systems, the newspaper says, test drivers were “falling asleep at
the wheel while at 55mph on a motorway.”

There were also cases of drivers applying makeup at the
wheel, the paper adds, while some were found to be “hunting for
cables and electronic devices” in the vehicle’s cabin.

Waymo, the autonomous car division of Google,
conducted the tests between 2012 and 2013, says Tech Crunch, when the company planned to
introduce a “semi-autonomous” system that could handle multiple
driving functions. 

The company’s chief, John Krafcik, told the website: “we
shut down this aspect of the project a couple of days after seeing
that.”

“The better you make the driver assist technologies, the
more likely the human behind the wheel is to fall asleep and then
when the vehicle says ‘hey I need you to take over’, they lack
contextual awareness”, he added.

While most car manufacters’ aim to create autonomous
vehicles that can do all the driving, the majority still require
drivers to remain alert and hold the wheel in case a dangerous
situation occurs. 

This has led Waymo to focusing more on level four and five driverless systems, says
Tech Crunch, which sees the vehicle handle every aspect of driving
by itself. 

“The technology has seen one driver killed at the wheel of
a Tesla Model S”, The Daily Telegraph says, although there have
been many more cases of autonomous systems helping drivers avoid
road accidents.