Self-Driving Cars: 5 Problems That Need Solutions

Google recently released data showing that its self-driving cars have been involved in 11 minor crashes over the past six years, which has raised questions about when such autonomous vehicles will be ready for prime time.
The report suggests that most of the crashes were likely due to human driver error, and may not have been preventable, said Steven Shladover, a researcher at the Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Still, while some levels of automation are already in existing cars, completely driverless cars — with no steering wheels or brakes for human drivers — would require much more innovation, Shladover said. [10 Technologies That Will Change Your Life]
"If you want to get to the level where you could put the elementary school kid into the car and it would take the kid to school with no parent there, or the one that's going to take a blind person to their medical appointment, that's many decades away," Shladover told Live Science.
From ultra-precise maps to fail-proof software, here are five problems that must be solved before self-driving cars hit the roadways.