U.S. transportation officials are seeking to ease deployment of driverless cars by amending certain safety standards, drawing strong protest from groups who say the move is premature because the safety of self-driving technology is unproven.
Not long ago I bought a new car. It had been a while. While I was on the sidelines, the auto industry has been experiencing unprecedented transformation. One researcher claims there will be ten million self-driving cars on the road by 2020, with one in four cars being self-driving by 2030.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has designated 10 proving ground pilot sites to encourage testing and information sharing around automated vehicle technologies. These proving ground designations will foster innovations with the goal of safely transform personal and commercial mobility, expand capacity, and open new doors to disadvantaged people and communities.
On Valentine’s Day in Silicon Valley, one of Google’s experimental, self-driving cars sideswiped a city bus at 2 miles an hour. The incident marked the first time an autonomous car contributed to an accident on a public road, but did nothing to diminish the Obama administration’s enthusiasm for driverless vehicles.
