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Comment by modeless | Hacker News Reader

In the descriptions I've seen, the Google car doesn't rely on the lane markings in normal driving. The lanes are pre-mapped and it can use any mapped landmark (including but not limited to the lane markings) to determine its position relative to the lanes.

The Google car also does not drive in snow AFAIK. Maybe that's bad for you but it's not a deal breaker for the first deployment of self driving cars as there are plenty of places where it never snows.

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> The lanes are pre-mapped

Should be interesting to see how it handles detours and temporary road re-routes. How would a self-driving car handle a two-lane two-way double-yellow-line road with one lane closed and a flagger alternating both directions of traffic through the same lane?

I think it probably can read lane markings, as well as construction signs, flaggers, etc. I know it've seen videos of it detecting hand signals given by bicyclists. It just doesn't make sense to rely on lane markings during normal driving because lane markings are often or missing or obscured or just plain wrong.

Ignoring lanes and driving using an old map seems a great way to plow into oncoming traffic.

So does blindly following lane markings that were incompletely erased and are now incorrect. Clearly the Google car does not do either of these things, because if it did then it would certainly have crashed many times over by now.

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