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No Hands Needed: Driverless Cars Coming to Highway Near You

© KANAZAWA UNIVERSITY The driverless car developed by Kanazawa University. It will be road tested from March 1 to 2020
The driverless car developed by Kanazawa University. It will be road tested from March 1 to 2020 - Sputnik International
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Driverless cars are no longer a dream of the future, but rather a reality that’s right around the corner.

The automated vehicles will debut in Great Britain and as many as ten cities in the US this year, starting with Tampa Bay, Florida in late spring. And if all goes well, up to 20 more cities in the US next year, meaning that the cars with no one manning the wheel will be a common sight in a number of towns in the US as they test out their viability.

A Google self-driving car goes on a test drive near the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. While these cars promise to be much safer, accidents will be inevitable. How those cars should react when faced with a series of bad, perhaps deadly, options is a field even less developed than the technology itself. - Sputnik International
Apple Looking to Build Self-Driving Car, Too

Actually, they’re already on the roads in the UK, as the first one debuted recently and is being tested in the town of Greenwich in England. It’s an electric-powered two-seater designed by the British company Transport Systems Catapult and it’s mainly for use on sidewalks and pedestrian areas to help people with short errands.

It can travel 12 miles an hour and uses sensors, radar and cameras. Passengers would punch in their destination and sit back and relax. Similar cars already operate in Heathrow Airport ferrying passengers from the parking lots to the terminal, but the ones on the streets in Greenwich are the first ones allowed in “real” traffic.

The ones to be tested in the states range from small two-seaters to buses that can carry up to 70 passengers. “We’re looking at college campuses, theme parks, airports, downtown areas – places like that,” said Corey Clothier of Comet LLC, the consulting firm overseeing the trial runs.  

Clothier told The Observer daily that a driverless car is 25 to 40% cheaper than operating a car with a real driver, particularly since the driverless ones are all electric, rechargeable and could cost as little as $1 to $3 a day. And obviously on public  transportation, a driverless bus has no labor costs.    

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