Driverless Cars Not Ready For The Drive

By Sharon Reardon, KABC 790AM LOS ANGELES, CA

February 28, 2018

http://www.kabc.com/2018/02/28/driverless-cars-not-ready-for-the-drive/

Driverless cars will be tested in California, for the first time without a person behind a steering wheel. The plan follows new rules that state regulators approved Monday for this new, state of the art technology.

Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court is not a fan.

“We’ve been following these robot cars for quite awhile. When they approved testing regulations years ago, we asked for reports and we made sure to make the reports public. We got the latest reports in January. In the best case circumstances, robot cars can’t go more than 5,600 miles before disengagement. That means when a human takes over. Now, that’s Waymo, Google’s car and that’s the best case scenario. In most cases, it’s only a couple of hundred miles without a human driver taking over. Why? Because, there’s a pothole, there’s weather, software or hardware deficiencies, something that wasn’t mapped on the road. These cars just aren’t ready to drive themselves.”

He goes on to say putting these cars on the road will be like playing a video game, except real lives will be at stake since car companies can apply for permit to test and have remote driver, like a video game.

“If you’re in a car and you are a test  driver, you can see danger, you’re alert and you can sense the problem and take over. It’s a one dimensional thing if you are a remote driver watching a screen. I think people are going to get hurt. I think there will be deaths. The technology has a lot of promise, but it’s a huge mistake if you rush it to the roads, if there’s death and injury, it could kill the technology.”

Court was a guest on McIntyre in the Morning.

Sharon Reardon, KABC News