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A comment on Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without an accident. Parent comment

Re:Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without a... by marvin on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @05:35PM (#4352449)
Most people stay way too close to the car in front, though. You're doing well as long as nothing unexpected happens. But if someone for some reason has to hit the brake really fast, you'll get a completely unnecessary pileup.

The Google cars probably also have additional margins of safety to allow for the driver to react to unexpected computer behavior _and_ actually step in and perform the maneuver himself.

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Re:Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without a... by Estragon on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @06:02PM (#4352586) 

  > Most people stay way too close to the car in front, though.
Yes, and people who don't care about this risk are very annoying drivers for the people who do.
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Re:Google's Autonomous cars complete 300,000 miles without a... by lallysingh on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @07:45PM (#4353009)
I usually lightly tap the brake pedal, to let the lights come on, when they're too close behind me.
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