It's Impossible to Find Out If Self-Driving Cars Are Safe, Says Report

One of the arguments for self-driving cars is that they will be safer than human-driven vehicles.Human error is the cause of 94% of car crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those errors include drunk driving, speeding, distraction, and fatigue. But a new report finds that self-driving cars can't be tested enough hours to determine their safety. The report from research firm RAND Corporationsays autonomous vehicles would need to be tested "hundreds of millions of miles and sometimes hundreds of billions of miles" to gain enough information to compare its safety to human-driven automobiles. Such thorough testing would require "tens and sometimes hundreds of years," which would make it impractical to accomplish before clearing the vehicles for regular consumer use, the report said.