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We asked Pittsburgh residents how they feel about Uber’s driverless cars

• kafkaesq 10y ago
  My favorite part: There are still a lot of questions. Some residents worry about the ability of a self-driving car to successfully navigate to a rider's location, or to avoid sudden road closures. Pittsburgh is said to be a tough — as in "good" — test case for self-driving vehicles, because the city has hills, bridges and older streets. On Sept. 2, a construction accident on the Liberty Bridge caused a fire that was so hot that it melted part of the bridge's support structure. The bridge has been closed for weeks, causing commuter headaches. But Uber's navigation system didn't appear to know about the bridge closure, said Shiquita Crumbley, a Pittsburgh native who started driving for Uber a few months ago. "GPS's are not always correct," she said. "It might take you to this bridge, not necessarily knowing, hey, this bridge is not open, you can't go on it. So, just making sure it's the most updated version. That's going to be the biggest, biggest thing for everyone's safety."