A Reality Check for Driverless Cars

For autonomous vehicles to roam the freeway, infrastructure and the law will need to accelerate and catch up with innovation, experts say.

1 minute read

June 21, 2011, 9:00 AM PDT

By Jeff Jamawat


The fact of the matter is people know that technology of the kind exists, which begs the question: What's the holdup?

The problem, Eric Jaffe points out, is antiquated traffic laws.

"Right now autonomous vehicles are illegal in every state. Before they can gain access to the road we must rewrite just about all our current driving codes, which take for granted that a person is behind the wheel," he says.

Tyler Cowen of George Mason University weighs in, "[T]ransportation is one area where progress has been slow for decades." He continues, "That debate on this issue is so quiet shows the urgency of doing something now."

Monday, June 20, 2011 in The Infrastructurist

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

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