Google cars involved in 11 accidents in 1.7m miles

This technology is at its infant stage and will eventually will be worked out to near perfection, admittedly that's in far future because consumer demand is not high thus funding and investments is not high. Unlike the cell phone technology which takes huge leaps because the consumer demand is high.
Relating to the article 11 minor accidents in 1.7 million miles of city driving is not bad, I dont know if its true that none were at fault but I am pretty sure that is better than the average city car driver.

 

Computer cars on the roads with idiot drivers. No computer can be programmed to deal with all the crap you run into in the course of a typical day in urban and rural traffic. Can't program defensive driving. You can try, but the human brain can not be matched by computing power when it comes to decision-making and common sense (assuming the brain is not "defective" as many are)

When it gets right down to it, a self-driving car or truck can only be expected to do basic open-road driving, safely and effectively. The only way they could operate with any real degree of success is on roads and intersections designed with them in mind (sensors, transmitters, emitters, receivers), and only these "computer cars", and free of idiot human drivers they can't account for. So, it's not going to happen on any major level in many many generations to come, at least.

Will they become safer and more reliable?, Yes, maybe a little, but only a little, and I still stand by my statement above.