PITTSBURGH—When local residents begin riding in Uber Technologies Inc.’s self-driving cars, they may find the robots operate like driver’s-ed students.

On Monday, autonomous Ford Fusions owned by Uber, manned by a backup driver and an engineer in the front seat for safety, rolled slowly and cautiously through some of the city’s grittier neighborhoods as pedestrians curiously looked on. During a demonstration ride for The Wall Street Journal, our robo-taxi obeyed speed limits, stayed in its lane and never shot through yellow...