Would you ride in a driverless cab?

Overseas, the technology is already more visible. Waymo says its driverless vehicles have recorded large reductions in injury crashes compared with human drivers in the American cities where it operates. 

In the United Arab Emirates, governments are pushing hard, with ambitions for a significant share of trips in Dubai and Abu Dhabi to be driverless in coming years. 

But the safety story is not all smooth driving. Recent reports from the United States have described recalls and incidents involving autonomous vehicles entering construction zones or struggling with unusual road conditions. 

These examples do not mean the technology is unsafe overall, but they do show why regulators are moving carefully.  

There is also the question of trust. Many cars already have driver-assistance features such as lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, and parking aids. But those systems still require a human driver to stay alert and in control. 

A true autonomous vehicle is different: the onboard software takes over the whole driving task under approved conditions. 

Another issue is not just whether autonomous vehicles are safer overall, but whether we are willing to accept the kinds of mistakes they make. 

MIT’s Moral Machine project asked people around the world to consider difficult “lesser of two evils” scenarios involving driverless cars — for example, whether a vehicle should protect its passengers or avoid pedestrians if a crash is unavoidable. 

The research highlighted how moral expectations vary across cultures and individuals, and why regulators cannot leave these decisions entirely to engineers or car companies. 

MIT’s related work on the ethics of autonomous vehicles notes that, while AVs may reduce crashes overall, rare unavoidable accidents raise hard questions about how machines should be programmed to respond. 

This may be one of the biggest barriers to public trust. Human drivers make terrible decisions every day – speeding, misjudging gaps, becoming distracted or driving while tired – and we often accept those errors as part of ordinary life. 

But when a robot makes a bad decision, even rarely, it can feel colder and less forgivable. 

If an autonomous vehicle causes fewer crashes than humans overall, but one day chooses a course of action we find morally troubling, will we judge it by statistics or by instinct?  

That is the question facing governments, manufacturers, and passengers alike: are we prepared to trust a machine that may be safer on average, but still capable of making mistakes no human would want to own? 

So, would you feel safe climbing into a car with no driver? 

Perhaps the answer depends on where it is going, how well it has been tested, and whether you know who is responsible if something goes wrong. 

This technology has been a long time coming. Even when it arrives, will we be truly ready for it? 

Related reading: NTC, Department of Infrastructure, Waymo, Robot Taxis Australia, UK Government, Fox News, MIT