What does the future hold for driverless cars in Washington?
Jun 11, 2017, 7:44 AM | Updated: 7:45 am
Driverless cars may become part of everyday life sooner than we think. (AP)
(AP)
Autonomous vehicles, driverless cars, highly automated vehicles. It’s a reality that might be closer than you think.
When will we see driverless cars on the streets?
“The developers of the technology are hoping and they are doing a pretty good job of putting it on the road today, but I’d say a 2020 to 2022 timeframe,” said John Eddy, the head of San Francisco Infrastructure for ARUP.
Tony Seba, a Stanford economist who recently finished a study on driverless technology, says we could see a “huge market disruption” in 2021.”
“People are going to make the rational economic choice and switch to using a driverless car service, the average American family will save $5,600 per year,” he said.
Analyst: Within 15 years, Seattle will have no need for parking
University of Washington Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering Don Mackenzie says, “The only thing I can say about a number there is that it will be wrong. Any answer you get will be wrong … it’s plausible that in the next five years we’ll see commercialization self-driving technology.”
According to the Department of Transportation, more than 35,000 people died on U.S. roadways in 2015 and 94 percent of crashes can be tied to a human choice or error. Anthony Foxx, the Transportation Secretary under Obama, made an announcement that, as far as driverless cars go, the government believes they will be ready for our roads when it’s 50 percent safer than driving manually.
PEMCO Insurance asked drivers what they thought. Fifty-eight percent believe that self-driving cars will be on our streets in the next decade.
“When has Seattle ever not been an early adopter? I think Seattle is very cutting edge on just about everything including tech in cars, especially since we do have a youngish population. Forty-seven percent of younger drivers think they will hit the streets in 10 years and they are extremely interested in owning a self-driving vehicle,” PEMCO Insurance spokesperson Derek Wing said.
So the “when” question ranges with our experts before we switch from driver to rider.
Are driverless cars safe?
Driverless car fleets are already on the streets in Nevada, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and other cities. In Pittsburgh, you can request an Uber and it would roll up without a driver.
“If a community wanted it really fast, they would remove all manually driven cars from a particular geography and say this area is only driverless, because driverless cars will be able to communicate quietly easily and safely and you gain all of the benefits — like traffic flow, safety, when the fleet is entirely driverless,” said John Eddy, the head of San Francisco Infrastructure for ARUP.
Vehicles will have sensors all around in order to “see” the difference between a deer or something simple like when the light turns green. There are currently challenges with car sensors in extreme weather conditions.
For the next 10 years or so we will see a mix of human and computer drivers and our experts say that won’t necessarily be as safe.
“With humans, we’re highly adaptive and respond appropriately to countless number of situations, it’s a lot harder to make a car do that, as long as you have a fair number of manually driven cars, you don’t necessarily get the benefits of increasing throughput on roadways but you still get the increase of travel demand because you have made driving safer, cheaper and more convenient but I’m pessimistic,” Mackenzie said.
If you are riding in a car without a steering wheel, do you even need car insurance? Short answer, yes.
PEMCO insurance broke down the driverless car possibilities:
Like an accident you have to ask, who’s at fault?
• Car manufacturer: Was there a problem with the programming, systems or some other issue related to making the car?
• Car owner: Did the owner properly maintain the vehicle as specified by the manufacturer?
• Driver: Even in “driverless” cars, there may be a time that a driver is required to take over piloting.
What is Washington State doing to prepare for our driverless car future?
“Part of the vision is connecting those vehicles with what we are already doing. We have a variety of traffic sensors, cameras, roadway weather systems, and what we are going to do in the future is take that information and share it with the private sector so it can be integrated into the autonomous vehicles,” said Ted Bailey, engineering manager for Operation Initiatives for the Washington State Department of Transportation.
One major Seattle traffic headache is the I-5 corridor. The city points to single-occupancy-vehicles as a big factor. To offset that, companies are trying different things to get people to carpool, such as The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which provides employees free ORCA cards and $3 a day if they don’t drive alone to work.
Bailey says, “We are not going to widen I-5 in Seattle anytime soon, so anything we can do using technology is going to help, so autonomous vehicles, the connected aspect, that will help with that kind of traffic congestion.”
What happens in the next 5-10 years? Will we see big sensors erected on the side of I-5?
According to Bailey, “It appears to be that from the planning side, it’s licensing, that is where people are initiating discussions.”
Paperwork? That’s not very exciting. However, Governor Jay Inslee just signed an executive order outlining what a driverless car pilot program will look like in WA.
• Driverless cars must have a trained driver behind the wheel, who has a valid Washington license.
• Companies have to attest to proof of financial responsibility.
Remember thinking driverless cars were such a far out futuristic idea? Companies can submit their driverless car pilot program paperwork to the DOL on Aug. 6, 2017.
