Driverless

Cars on the road don't always need drivers, according to new Nevada legislation that allows driverless vehicles in the state. Assembly Bill 511, the first such legislation in the country, allows the state's Department of Transportation to draw up rules that would authorize such automated vehicles. The regulations would include safety standards, insurance requirements and testing sites. A driverless car is defined by the bill as using "artificial intelligence, sensors and global positioning system coordinates to drive itself without the active intervention of a human operator.

Bad news for Audi, Lexus, Google, and other companies keen on developing driverless cars: you've been beaten to the punch. A video making the rounds on YouTube shows a driverless car pulling into the drive-through of various fast food restaurants, causing plenty of alarm and confusion among the people working the window. The catch: there's actually a hidden driver. The man behind the video prank is 24-year-old magician Rahat Hossain. Hossain, who lives in Virgina Beach, Va., has a YouTube channel called Magic of Rahat.

Lexus has its own shiny, intelligent vehicle in the growing fleet of self-driving cars being developed by the likes of Google, Audi and others. Just don't expect it to go on sale any time soon. The automaker's Advanced Active Safety Research Vehicle is still a “pure research project” that needs to “build trust with society and governments” before being unleashed on the open roads, said General Manager Mark Templin in a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show. “Machines can handle simple tasks,” he said, referencing the millions of dollars the auto industry is pouring  into preventative technology that hand over more of the brainpower involved in driving to computers and sensors.

Lexus has its own shiny, intelligent vehicle in the growing fleet of self-driving cars being developed by the likes of Google, Audi and others. Just don't expect it to go on sale any time soon. The automaker's Advanced Active Safety Research Vehicle is still a “pure research project” that needs to “build trust with society and governments” before being unleashed on the open roads, said General Manager Mark Templin in a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show. “Machines can handle simple tasks,” he said, referencing the millions of dollars the auto industry is pouring  into preventative technology that hand over more of the brainpower involved in driving to computers and sensors.

Tired of spending $200 million or more per mile on a subway? Shop at the Kmart of public transit, where a futuristic rail system can be had for a bargain-basement price of $2 million to $4 million per mile. So say the promoters of the CyberTran (for Cybernetic Transportation), who exhibited one of the rail cars Thursday at the Burbank offices of Calstart, the public-private consortium developing transportation technology. The event kicked off an effort to secure $20 million in public and private funds for construction of a 10-mile CyberTran demonstration track at an undetermined site in California.

Google's self-driving car has fascinated our minds with its technological promise since being introduced in 2010. But yesterday, the self-driving car touched our hearts. Google posted a video of the self-driving car taking a legally blind man for a spin, showing one of the possibilities and benefits that could come from the technology. "Where this would change my life is to give me the independence and the flexibility to go to the places I both want to go and need to go when I need to do those things," Steve Mahan says in the video.

Have you ever wondered why the traffic in Los Angeles keeps getting worse, despite all the money spent on studies, plans and capital improvements? Well, here's a clue. With the recently approved Century freeway driverless carriage, we are now blessed with three incompatible mass transit systems ("Automated Century Trolley Gets Green Light," Metro, May 26). Transportation planners can't even agree on a regional system that works together. We are in much bigger trouble than I thought.

The many letters attacking the Green Line decision are encouraging (Jan. 8). While the issue of "Buy American" is an emotional one, the vote to spend substantially more for a questionable technology is even more illogical. The professionals of the LACTC clearly had their doubts, so what was it that so persuasively convinced the members of the commission to choose yet another incompatible rail technology? Lobbyists? Labor costs? The cutting edge of technology? Mayor Bradley seems to be arguing the latter, as if Los Angeles were about to launch the Space Age of mass transit.

Thank you for featuring the Metro Green Line Light Rail project in the Los Angeles Times South Bay edition of Oct. 8, 1993. I was pleased to read the transportation article by Gordon Dillow during Rideshare Week; however, The Times missed a great opportunity to provide information and to educate its readers about the importance of having alternative modes of transportation within the region. The article could have highlighted the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's work in the region to provide these alternatives that will eventually help improve the general quality of life in the region.

Rip Rense just brought back some fond memories through his account of Krazy Kar ("To Judge Him By His Car Would Be, Uh, Krazy" Jan. 10). I've had several beater cars over the last 10 years, including "The Beast," which nearly killed me in a freak driverless accident. But my most cherished memory is of Belv. Belv, a blue 1967 Plymouth Belvedere four door, was simply the greatest car ever made. The dents, the gutless engine, the broken door handles all added to the character. Belv was an extension of me; Belv gave me an identity.

Technophobes beware, self-driving cars are getting closer every day . Luxury cars like Audi's A8 already have cruise control systems that can take you down to a dead stop and back to cruising speed without any human interaction. Google's self-drivers are ubiquitous in the San Francisco area, and a variety of Fords and Lincolns can parallel park themselves. And now Nissan is getting into the mix. The company recently launched a pair of technologies related to cars moving themselves when humans can't or won't.

Google's self-driving car has fascinated our minds with its technological promise since being introduced in 2010. But yesterday, the self-driving car touched our hearts. Google posted a video of the self-driving car taking a legally blind man for a spin, showing one of the possibilities and benefits that could come from the technology. "Where this would change my life is to give me the independence and the flexibility to go to the places I both want to go and need to go when I need to do those things," Steve Mahan says in the video.

Cars on the road don't always need drivers, according to new Nevada legislation that allows driverless vehicles in the state. Assembly Bill 511, the first such legislation in the country, allows the state's Department of Transportation to draw up rules that would authorize such automated vehicles. The regulations would include safety standards, insurance requirements and testing sites. A driverless car is defined by the bill as using "artificial intelligence, sensors and global positioning system coordinates to drive itself without the active intervention of a human operator.

In Sebastian Thrun's vision of the future, freeways will be blissful havens from the everyday stresses of life. We will unwind during swift, smooth commutes free of aggressive lane changes, defensive brake-tapping and road rage. The SigAlert will be a distant memory. What will make this utopian autobahn possible? Robots. Robots don't get mad; they don't flip you the bird; they don't cut you off out of spite; and they definitely don't crash into one another. At least they're not supposed to.

A 4-year-old boy was rescued from a runaway minivan after a passing motorist chased the van on foot and hit the brakes. Hoa Nguyen, 41, had just dropped off his own children at school Wednesday when he spotted the driverless van moving backward with a small child inside strapped into a safety seat, a spokesman for the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office said. Nguyen got out of his car, hopped into the driver's seat of the out-of-control vehicle and slammed on the brakes.

Imagine driverless buses cruising on magnetized streets and pulling precisely into stations. Think about smart, chatty cars text-messaging each other about the dangerous pothole ahead and able to maneuver themselves -- without a human hand -- into tight parallel-parking spots. And wouldn't it be useful for special eyeglasses to wake up drowsy drivers? Actually, you don't have to dream about these things.

Re "MTA Offers Long-Range Transit Plan for Region," Jan. 18. The Chandler-Burbank corridor is a heavy rail artery more than 100 years old. Failure to make best use of it would be a very expensive mistake. Let's not spend more than the cost of radio-controlled traffic signals if it is to be used for faster buses. Light rail using driverless Green Line technology and running below grade is the best, most cost-effective answer. We must remember that light rail is quiet. Fritz Friedman of Concerned Citizens Transit Coalition calls the busway a hazard, citing the proximity of synagogues, schools and homes.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Even though its ubiquitous Internet search engine practically mints money, Google Inc. was widely seen as a company whose best days were behind it. It was written off as the next Microsoft Corp. - a staid high-tech giant in the shadows of Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. that had lost its sense of urgency and innovative edge. But that sentiment has shifted dramatically over the last year, and when Google swings open the doors to its annual conference for software developers Wednesday, it won't just be showcasing its latest products.

Dozens of people are killed every day after being hit by cars -- but rarely by their own. So the fact that three people in Orange County have been killed in the last seven weeks after they were pinned by their own vehicles puzzles experts, who say such accidents are so infrequent that their numbers aren't even tracked. On Wednesday, a 50-year-old man died after he was run over twice by his 1987 Jaguar, which witnesses said was circling in reverse in a Brea parking lot.

A driverless truck rolled down an embankment and onto the Ventura Freeway in Camarillo on Tuesday, triggering a chain of collisions and a fiery explosion that left one woman dead and closed the highway for several hours. The accident occurred shortly before 11 a.m. in the southbound lanes near the Central Avenue onramp, snarling traffic for at least 10 miles. Nearby streets and California 118 were jammed for hours.