Driverless Cars Take to French Roads
It sounds like something from science-fiction — but it’s actually the latest brainchild from town planners in the western French town of La Rochelle. Small electric cars without drivers steer themselves through the streets taking locals and tourists around town in the first driverless car pilot program.
French law prevents vehicles without drivers from traveling on expressways so when those tests begin later this year, they will have a person in the vehicle as backup in case something goes awry.
The system works much like an elevator. A screen at stations allows passengers to enter their destination and the nearest vehicle comes to pick them up. Civic leaders want to add more automated vehicles to the fleet of five to reduce wait times at stations and get people where they need to go faster.
New Rochelle is hoping to roll out more driverless vehicles in time for the Christmas holidays.
In the U.S. tech giant Google is pressing Nevada to change state law and allow driverless vehicles on state roads and highways. The company would like to get permission to test its location software on driverless cars but must get permission from the state legislature before conducting any tests.
Volvo’s Senior Safety Engineer Thomas Broberg says that driverless cars will become a reality as they are a big part of the company’s initiative to eliminate fatalities in any of its cars by 2020.
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