Too Often, We Don't Regulate New Technologies Until Somebody Dies

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. I rode in my first self-driving car in the summer of 1997, as part of a demonstration to display the technology in "the real world" on a stretch of Interstate 15 in San Diego. The organizers took great pains to carefully regulate the separate HOV lanes of the highway to ensure that there were barriers preventing all other cars--and pedestrians--from interfering. Everyone involved knew there was a significant amount of work to get from that demonstration to having self-driving cars safely navigate normal city streets. In the 20 years since, I've continued to study automated vehicles, particularly their history, and the technology has continued to develop.