Sharing the streets with robots in training is worth the bother

Self-driving vehicles move closer toward reality every day, but most of us will likely live through a few more presidential elections before driverless travel is routinely within reach through personal purchase (although availability through ride-hailing providers like Uber and Lyft could be here sooner). Even so, you're more likely to encounter such vehicles in your daily travel, because many states and cities are now serving as testing grounds for these rapidly advancing technologies, and the list of locations is growing steadily. Legislators in 29 states have passed laws related to autonomous vehicles (AV), and governors in 11 more states have issued AV-related executive orders. But regardless of where they're happening, there are two things to remember about these experiments: They are inescapably disruptive, and they are entirely necessary. Slightly more than half of U.S. adults are apprehensive about riding in a self-driving vehicle, citing safety concerns and a general lack of trust in the technology, according to a Pew survey in 2017.