Do you hate driving around D.C.? Soon the robots can do it for you!

As of Monday this week, ridesharing company Uber has begun methodical testing of its self-driving cars in the nation's capital. The launch was announced last week at the Washington Auto Show, and more details were shared in a blog post from Uber. Initially, the cars are being deployed with two human operators who'll take the new tech out for a drive and allow the vehicle's sensors to navigate and respond to high-definition maps and prepare for different scenarios on the road. D.C. joins a handful of other cities, like San Fransisco and Dallas, in these first steps of implementation.

This is a re-launch, by the way.

Two years ago In Tempe, Arizona, one of Uber's self-driving cars struck and killed a woman. The details of the story continued to surface into 2019, when the National Traffic Safety Board released a 400-page report describing what factors led to the incident. The self-driving vehicle recognized the woman as a pedestrian in harm's way 1.3 seconds before impact, but the computer's settings didn't allow the car to use its emergency brake. Instead, the protocol was for the human co-pilot who was present to intervene and initiate the break—except that human was watching television on her phone.

Uber was not held criminally liable for the death but did shut down its self-driving program for nine months.

It's not just Uber's idea.

Ford, partnered with an artificial-intelligence company from Pittsburgh, announced similar testing plans back in October 2018, has been testing since last year, and is planning a commercial release for 2021.

D.C. government seems gung-ho about the whole self-driving car idea. With its "Autonomous Vehicle Act of 2012," D.C. was the first stateside jurisdiction to allow the licensing of self-driving car operators (the law around here requires the possibility of manual override by a human driver). Ever since 2017, when Washington, D.C., joined a global initiative promoting the adoption of autonomous vehicles, the arrival of self-driving cars seems like it's just a matter of time.

But how do you feel about it? Would you feel safe sharing the road with self-driving cars? What if there was a human present in each that could take over if needed?

Would you feel safe riding in an autonomous vehicle?

Join the discussion in the comments below!