Why? Private industry has already developed self driving cars using private money. Why throw in taxpayer money? What do we taxpayers get out of it? According to the Union Leader, Obama thinks self driving cars will eliminate traffic accidents. Let's hear it for the microprocessors. They never screw up. Right.
The only role I can see for guvmint in the self driving car thing is establishing uniform nation wide rules for how capable a self driving car has to be in order to be allowed to drive on the public roads. Say a driving test, the self driving car has to negotiate the test with out bending any fenders or hitting anything. Such a test would have to have some real traffic to avoid, some ice and snow, some cross winds, potholes, soft shoulders, some night driving, and what else?
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Oh yeah, I forgot, require self driving car to find a house number, stop in front of the house and blow the horn for passengers, a trick any cabbie has down pat. Since a lotta householders don't even post a house number, and those that do put it anywhere on the property, I doubt that a TV camera is going to be much help on this trick. Probably the self driving car would have to use Google Maps to convert the house number to GPS coordinates and follow its GPS receiver. For extra amusement, Google sometimes goofs up the house numbering. One street up here Google has the house numbers reversed from end to end.
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