Self-Driving Cars Will Improve Traffic Flow, Perform Better Than Human Drivers, Study Says

It is no secret that human driving is erratic, inconsistent and highly prone to accidents. Not just that, the stop and go style of driving in traffic causes accidents and mars fuel efficiency. Even a few self-driving cars on the road could change the way traffic works according to a new research. "Our experiments show that with as few as 5 percent of vehicles being automated and carefully controlled, we can eliminate stop-and-go waves caused by human driving behavior," said Daniel B. Work, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a lead researcher in the study published Tuesday. According to the study, even if all cars on the road are not self-driven, just the presence of a few such cars will help in better traffic monitoring and control.