Google has created tech that won't let you drive if it thinks you're bad at it

Google is leading the race to full autonomy with Waymo, but the tech giant is also filing patents that could be used for ‘normal’ cars.

Google is apparently working on a new type of tech that’s capable of detecting whether you’re a good driver or not.

The system would essentially allow you to drive your car, but also ride it as a self-driving vehicle, just like Tesla’s Full Self Driving.

The problem is the car could also potentially ‘lock you out’ if it thinks you’re a bad driver.

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Google wants to lead the race to full autonomy with Waymo

Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., also owns Waymo, which is, at least for now, the market leader for autonomous cars with over 100,000 paid rides per week.

They’re only available in a few cities currently, but the network is expanding quite quickly.

There are still a few issues, for example driverless cars are still occasionally swerving for no reason and can’t tell the difference between a STOP sign and a guy wearing a t-shirt with an image of the ‘STOP’ sign printed on it.

But studies show that self-driving cars are safer than cars driven by humans, and this is probably the reason behind Google’s latest patent.

How does the new tech work?

Details of technical nature are still quite scarce at the moment but, broadly speaking, the car would essentially use this new tech to monitor the driver’s ability.

It would work using something akin to a ‘three-strike’ system.

As in, you make one mistake, you get the equivalent of a tap on the shoulder, two mistakes and you get a yellow card, and then if you keep making mistakes the car simply won’t start unless you let it drive itself.

It sounds a bit confusing, to be honest, and car people certainly won’t want to delegate driving to a machine.

But the silver lining, if you want to call it that, is that this tech is still years away.

Maybe.