Waymo Applies to Put Autonomous Cars on CA Roads Without Safety Drivers

This is forward progress. Waymo has worked towards this point for years, reporting every disconnect and minor fender-bender. Now they&#x27;re going to test, cautiously, in Mountain View.<p>As we&#x27;ve seen with Uber and Tesla, the &quot;safety driver&quot; doesn&#x27;t add much safety. The &quot;safety driver&quot; is mostly there to drive manually in situations where the automation stops the vehicle and asks for help.

The original article from the SF Chronicle has some more info. Specifically, it contains the following very strange paragraph<p><i>Sources said that Waymo does not plan on operating its cars remotely — even in difficult situations — but it will remotely monitor them during tests. If one of the cars encounters something it doesn’t understand, such as complicated road construction, the car will contact Waymo for help recognizing the situation. After human testers give it feedback, the car will then decide how to navigate the situation.</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfchronicle.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;article&#x2F;Exclusive-Waymo-appplies-for-no-driver-testing-12832425.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfchronicle.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;article&#x2F;Exclusive-Waymo...</a>

People will die if GM&#x2F;Cruise takes the safety driver out of the car. Anyone familiar with Cruise Automation&#x27;s software will agree to this statement. Hopefully Waymo has done a better job.

Why in the world! are people allowing this without making the cars pass any sort of road worthiness test?<p>For example, make a robotic dummy walk in front of the car without notice. Does the car break and avoid a collision?<p>Such basic things can be formulated into a test and have the cars pass them before allowing them (even with a driver) on the roads..<p>It amazes me that people just stand by and allow these &quot;tests&quot; to happen within an unsuspecting population...

Great to see. Lets get the revolution going.