Autonomous Vehicles

“Within our lifetimes it will become socially unacceptable to take the wheel yourself.”

Stephen McBride co-founder Rational Optimist Society

I belong to the Rational Optimist Society and read their newsletter. It is based on the book The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley and each week they find positive thing going on in science, medicine and the way we interact.

This particular article reviewed the status of self driving vehicles and was very optimistic about WayMo, owned by Google, And now operating in four cities including Phoenix. Rumor has it that Google will spin it off in the next year.

Autonomous vehicles are safer, faster and cleaner than human driven vehicles. there will be acceptance issues and liability issues but these will be overcome.

When McBride said “our lifetimes” he probably wasn’t including this 78 year old optimist. I have ridden in a WayMo twice and it definitely is the future.

The photo is another of the tunnel photos from the Columbia River Bikeway.