How We RollIS AMERICA READY FOR A DRIVERLESS FUTURE?

How We Roll

IS AMERICA READY FOR A DRIVERLESS FUTURE?

EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN A DRIVERLESS CAR ON THE ROAD,

you've seen plenty of them in the headlines. Flocks of them are predicted to swarm the streets, ready to roll up at the tap of a smart phone. They're predicted to be clean, safe, convenient, and if the Google car is any indication, adorable. And they're predicted to be ready for American streets before you can say, "Fully autonomous self-driving vehicle."

But a prediction won't schlep your kid to soccer practice. And getting our streets (and our heads) ready for driverless transportation is going to take a lot more than a cute new car and a can-do attitude. When the cars themselves are ready for prime time, we'll need to make sure the country that invented car culture is really ready to hand over the steering wheel. We'll need to make changes to our roads and infrastructure, too, since driverless vehicles will almost certainly require a real-time data connection to get from A to B. In fact, going driverless could be the biggest reboot of the American transportation system since the horse and buggy went the way of, well, the horse and buggy. Are we ready to make it happen?

Read more : http://dme.engin.umich.edu/driverlesscars/