Horseless Carriages to Driverless Cars
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Digital innovation usually happens in the virtual world, from apps for tablets and mobile phones to the latest in social media. Over the next few years, one of the biggest technological changes will be in the real world of driving a car. Or being driven by one.
The largely self-driving car is no longer just a vision, thanks to rapid advances in lasers, radar, GPS and mapping databases. If it weren’t for fear among innovators of getting too far ahead of U.S. laws and regulations, there would already be cars on the road doing almost as much driving as humans.
California, Nevada and Florida made it legal to operate self-driving cars on public roads two years ago. Google‘s GOOG +1.30% fleet has since traversed more than 435,000 miles in cities and on highways without causing an accident. Still, regulators are nervous. During congressional hearings in May, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) cited the possibility of cyberattacks: “Can some 14-year-old in Indonesia figure out how to do this and just shut your car down?”
In June, the U.S. Department of Transportation applied the brakes, invoking the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s power to regulate vehicle safety. The federal rules let states allow limited tests of self-driving cars, but no sales.
Read original articleTags: Driverless Cars Digital innovation, Horseless Carriages, Jay Rockefeller, mobile phones, virtual world
