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Pa. Officials Looking To Expand Use, Testing Of Self-Driving Vehicles

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- KDKA's John Shumway climbed into Carnegie Mellon University's Autonomous Driving Cadillac SRX Wednesday for his first ride with no one's hands on the steering wheel. Nervous, you bet!

The head of the program, Raj Rajkumar, Ph.D., was behind the wheel and had these reassuring words, "Right now, it can react faster than most human's in most circumstances."

He said that as the car maneuvered the curves through the Bob O'Connor Golf Course.

Within a few minutes, Shumway was completely relaxed riding in a car where the steering wheel was smoothly turning on its own, directed by the four computers in the trunk.

The computers get their information from the multiple cameras, lasers and sensors that are built into the car in a way that makes it look like any other Caddy sedan.

CMU'S SRX has been on the road for about five years and has driven automotive executives in Michigan and politicians in Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh, but now it's time to expand the testing.

That's why PennDOT Secretary Leslie Richards was in Pittsburgh Wednesday to announce an aggressive pushing ahead of testing and development of "self-driving cars" in Pennsylvania.

In addition to announcing a bill that will allow more autonomous vehicles on the streets of Pittsburgh, the secretary announced the formation of a task force "to advise PennDOT on the appropriate policy framework to promote and guide safe testing of autonomous vehicle technologies in Pennsylvania."

Secretary Richards sees the technology as a huge door to jobs in the industry, expanded educational opportunities and mobility for the elderly and disabled.

Drivers in Pittsburgh, faced with the possibility of more self-driving cars on the streets and parkways beside them, had comments like, "I think they might be better than most regular drivers around here."

"I would hope the cars that drive themselves are smarter than us," another person said.

"What if some animal darts out in front of them, or a child, what if it doesn't stop fast enough?" a third driver asked.

It was that question that prompted Rep. Dan Frankel to respond, "I'm confident nobody is going to put a vehicle out on the street that is going to endanger the public welfare."

Dr. Rajkumar says a version of self-driving cruise control is expected to be available for limited uses on Tesla vehicles as early as next year. General Motors may not be far behind.

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But widespread usage and full application of an autonomous car or truck is probably still a decade away.

That's primarily because, he says, "There are circumstances that come up in the real world it would not be able to handle like a human."

So the testing is critical to advancement of the technology.

And, in case you are wondering, Dr. Rajkumar says an autonomous car does not feel the need to slow down going into a tunnel.

"We have tested that, it will not," he says. "This vehicle does not fear the tunnel so it does not have to slow down."

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