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BERKELEY, Calif. (KTVU) - Are we getting ahead of ourselves in the rush to have driverless cars? Though almost all new technologies get thoroughly vetted before they get out in the world, that's less so with autonomous vehicles.
It takes years of testing to certify airliners to ever carry passengers. Most drugs go through years of animal and human clinical testing, before certification and before the general public can get a prescription. Many other products, including driver driven cars, are thoroughly tested and still, recalls happen.
But autonomous vehicles are out there right now being tested on public streets.
"The key thing is that we have to have safe testing procedures," said UC Berkeley Professor Steven Shladover, a world renowned expert on autonomous vehicles. He says few states have adopted California's rigorous rules for testing.
"Some parts of the country don't have any restrictions on driving of automated test vehicles; a number of the states like Arizona, Texas, Florida, Michigan," said Professor Shladover.
After an Uber autonomous vehicle killed a pedestrian in Arizona, Uber closed down its testing there and recently moved it to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where it had already tested cars.
But, Pittsburgh's Mayor was not informed of the major change and issued this statement.
"Uber did not tell me of today's announcement, and I was forced to learn about it through social media reports. This is not the way to rebuild a constructive working relationship with local government, especially when facing a public safety matter."
"That Volvo vehicle that [Uber was] using has one of the best safety systems on the market. They have a system that will detect the driver alertness.
They have systems that will detect pedestrians and bicyclists and all of those were disconnected," said Professor Shladover.
Director Randy Iwasaki of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority partners with GoMentum, a federally certified, secured autonomous testing center on the grounds of the former Concord Naval Weapons Station.
"I think it's very important to have a controlled environment where you can test these technologies and you can replicate tests. You don't get in anybody's way." said Mr. Iwasaki.
In fact, Lyft announced today it will test its driverless cars at GoMentum, not public roads. "Their words, not ours: they think it's more efficient because they can do repeated tests over and over and over again all day long and not bother anybody," said Iwasaki.
But, if there are too many more spectacular incidents, and regulators might have to slam the brakes on these technologies to regain public acceptance.