Google’s driverless cars designed to exceed speed limit

Google’s self-driving cars are programmed to exceed speed limits by up to 10mph, according to a report on the BBC News website.

Dmitri Dolgov, the project’s lead software engineer, said that when surrounding vehicles were breaking the speed limit, going more slowly could actually present a danger, and the Google car would accelerate to keep up.

The UK Government will conduct a trial of driverless cars on public roads in three cities from January 2015.

Commenting on Google self-drive cars’ ability to exceed the speed limit, a DfT spokesman told BBC News: “There are no plans to change speed limits, which will still apply to driverless cars.”

According to BBC News, in a separate development earlier this week the US Government announced that it wants all cars and light trucks to be equipped with technology that could “prevent collisions”. The technology comprises radio signals emitted by vehicles which would allow them to “talk” to each other, and alert drivers to potential accidents