Visited a self-driving car test track and the safety driver was on their phone the whole time

I went to a demo event for autonomous vehicles in Phoenix last Tuesday and something felt off. The car was doing fine on the course but the guy in the driver seat was scrolling through Instagram the whole ride. Kinda defeats the purpose of having a backup if they aren't even watching the road. Has anyone else seen this kind of lazy safety setup at these events?

2 comments

2 Comments

graceprice14d ago

Defeats the purpose" is a stretch, people scroll through red lights all the time without crashing.

nathan_hill6014d ago

Wait, are you SERIOUSLY comparing scrolling through a red light to being a safety driver for a self-driving car? Those are two completely different things. The safety driver's job is to watch the road and take over if something goes wrong, not check Instagram. If I'm paying for a test ride or trusting my safety to these events, I want the driver paying attention. When you're stopped at a red light, the car is stationary and you know the context. On a test track, the car could make a weird move at any second and that driver needs to be ready. It just feels lazy and dangerous to me, like nobody's really taking the responsibility seriously.