Uber: Driverless Cars Preview in Pittsburgh

Would it be exciting or boring to be alone in a car that moves by itself? Well, the more prominent and regular Uber users can find out. Those with many uber travels under their belt woke up to an email Wednesday morning to tell them about Uber's latest project: automated cars.

These driverless cars are Uber's latest attempt to construct an autonomous garage of cars without the need for human employees, at least in the long run. Still, it's a pretty exciting event, technologically. For so long this seemed to be the stuff of a somewhat distant future.

Brian Fung, of the Chicago Tribune, relates his story: "This Uber program is only a test; its riders, guinea pigs. Still, when Uber invited me to try the vehicle earlier this week - momentarily even putting me behind the wheel to operate one - mishaps were few and far between. In a word, things felt normal. Mundane, even."

However, there is a limit to the locations allowed by this feature in UberX. For now, it's only operable in downtown Pittsburgh, which is part of the operating boundaries of their new system. After all, the roads and streets have to be very well documented, a company like Uber wouldn't test out something with live beings unless they were confident about, after all.

In fact, there are still safety drivers present during the test run. These people have undergone at least two weeks training with the car in the same way regular people take their license: they undergo many different situations at different times of day to better familiarize themselves with the vehicle.

According to the LA Times, Uber itself has been experimenting and testing since May, and so there have been comments from the safety drivers themselves, some even regular Uber drivers. For those who treat the driving duty as a full time job, the new project has them wary. After all, it may seem threatening from a practical perspective. However, it doesn't seem Uber thinks that they'll be losing employees anytime soon.

The Boston Globe reports that people are still somewhat sceptical about the whole thing. There seems to be discomfort at the prospect of not having a human behind the wheels. Still, there's an optimistic side - so long as the technology is further honed and calibrated. There seems to be a ways to go, especially when you consider that there are driving conditions even human drivers are wary of, and some driving functions like parking that the safety drivers still have to perform in lieu of the program.

All in all though, this is a good prospect of what may await the future of driverless cars. Uber is taking a good step forward, and only time will tell if this idea will be sold better to the people they cater to.