Ready or Not, Driverless Cars Are Here

<p>After a closely watched vote, driverless cars, once a Silicon Valley fantasy, have become a 24-hour-a-day reality in San Francisco. Are autonomous vehicles an interesting and safe transportation alternative? Or are they a nuisance and a traffic-blocking disaster waiting to happen?</p><p>Cade Metz, who covers technology for The Times, describes the unique challenges of coexisting with cars that drive themselves.</p><p>Guest: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/cade-metz">Cade Metz</a>, a technology correspondent for The New York Times.</p><p>Background reading: </p><ul><li>On Monday, Waymo began letting the public pay for rides in its driverless cars in San Francisco.<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/technology/cruise-crash-driverless-car-san-francisco.html?searchResultPosition=2"> </a>The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/technology/cruise-crash-driverless-car-san-francisco.html?searchResultPosition=2">dispatched three reporters around the city</a> to test the service.</li><li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/technology/san-francisco-driverless-cars.html?searchResultPosition=6">Local officials are worried</a> that state regulators have been too eager to embrace plans for round-the-clock driverless taxi services.</li></ul><p>For more information on today’s episode, visit <a href="http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily">nytimes.com/thedaily</a>. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.</p>