Hyperdrive Daily: A car prang made me reflect on self-driving
Thinking About Self-Driving After an Accident
Autonomous driving requires a leap of faith, something that was brought home to me recently when I was in a (minor, thankfully) car accident. It was the middle of the day, and the Beijing taxi I was traveling in bumped into a minivan driving in front. It was hard to tell exactly what happened in those few seconds leading up to the rear-ending. Perhaps the summer sun was so bright it obscured the cab driver’s view of the van’s taillights, or the size of the vehicle in front meant he didn’t realize the cars up ahead had slowed down. It made me wonder what would have happened if I’d been chauffeured by a robot instead.