My understanding is that it &#x27;looks for signs&#x27;, if it expects them to be there. Obviously, it has to look at the stoplight to see what color it is. But it won&#x27;t look at arbitrary space for a stoplight it isn&#x27;t told exists.<p>Source, by the way: slate.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;technology&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html<p>FWIW, a Googler has done a TED talk about having the car recognize police officers holding signs and temporary things like that, more recently, so they may have made strides in solving this problem.<p>But at it&#x27;s core, the Self-Driving Car Project seems way too reliant on Google&#x27;s cloud servers for my taste. I&#x27;d love to have a self-driving car, but it needs to be self-driving, not Google-driving.