Is it a waste of time trying to get your divers licence if self-driving cars will be available soon?

Since autonomous cars are dependent on software, "soon" is a bit ambiguous term. Jokes aside, as there are several levels of automated driving (https://www.sae.org/misc/pdfs/automated_driving.pdf). I'd guess it will be couple of decades before high/full automation will take place. That is mainly, and unlike in case of smart phones for example, due to legal, unlike technological, challenges (http://www.autonomousregulationscongress.com/).  

Even after self-driving cars become ubiquitous, there will likely still be roads without clear markings, bad weather conditions like snow and ice, and related circumstances where manual human intervention will be required and training/licensing still required. 

On 9/21/2017 at 0:09 AM, mad_scientist said:

Is it a waste of time trying to get your divers licence if self-driving cars will be available soon?

First post here.

Not yet, although the day is probably coming when it will be illegal to drive your own car as soon as they work out all the bugs and the accident rate drops to near zero. 

We have self-driving Uber cars here. One of them was involved in an accident a few days ago, although the driver was in full control of the car at the time. When Google was testing the technology , they had a lot of problems because our lanes are not well marked and the sensors couldn't pick up on them. 

 

On 23/09/2017 at 4:45 AM, Woodstock said:

First post here.

Not yet, although the day is probably coming when it will be illegal to drive your own car as soon as they work out all the bugs and the accident rate drops to near zero. 

We have self-driving Uber cars here. One of them was involved in an accident a few days ago, although the driver was in full control of the car at the time. When Google was testing the technology , they had a lot of problems because our lanes are not well marked and the sensors couldn't pick up on them. 

 

Where is "here" exactly?

This forum

4 hours ago, mad_scientist said:

Where is "here" exactly?

Where exactly does Uber have self-driving cars?

2 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Where exactly does Uber have self-driving cars?

Pittsburg