Driverless cars have been banned in San Francisco, California. One of 9 US States which has allowed the technology to hit the roadways at all, has withdrawn its enthusiasm. The City by the Bay wants to be assured that the technology is more developed.
Apparently, Uber, who has its headquarters in San Francisco, is at the heart of the dispute. Special permits must be issued that assures the safety of passengers in a car that doesn’t have a human behind the wheel. Uber doesn’t want to pay the additional cost of permitting or the additional $5 million in insurance and therefore the two local giants can’t seem to agree.
A robotic, autonomous car is essentially a vehicle that is self-driving. Despite California’s position at this time, it’s not an unlikely scenario that someday soon your local airport shuttle service will be completely operated by driverless vehicles. Everything from taxi’s and busses to a 24 hour tow truck Bakersfield CA are all candidates for robotic vehicles to take over.
We were sitting in the back of an old Volkswagen Bug that had only three seats, dodging and weaving through traffic in the area around Chapultepec Park in Mexico City. My heart was in my throat and my left hand was in a death grip on my boyfriend’s right thigh.