What’s Holding Up Self-Driving Cars in Seattle? Long List of Issues

Did you know in San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin Texas and a handful of other cities, people can get rides in driverless taxis. But not Seattle.

  Despite tech sector, Seattle nowhere near driverless cars

  According to Geekwire, there's a wide variety of reasons why driverless programs have not taken off in the Emerald City.

Almost ten years ago Google tested the concept in Seattle, and former Governor  Jay Inslee claimed the region would lead the way in the development and tech, and it would spark the economy.

Waymo, who already has such taxis in San Francisco, has no plans to startup in Seattle, and Amazon is only sporatically tested its new Zook platform of driverless cars.

WA State doesn't have any roadmap for such development, and no clear set of regulations for setup and deployment of driverless vehicles. Seattle's Department of Transportation also points to a lack of statewide regulations.

According to Geekwire:

"Waymo, which began in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, plans to expand its robotaxi service next year to Miami, Washington, D.C., and Dallas."

Three years ago there was testing done in Bellevue by Waymo with several driverless vehicles, but nothing has developed since then.  In addition, waning  support for electrics and self driving vehicles at the Federal level has not helped.

In addition, a lack of a clear plan and different opinions about the tech between various stage agencies has led to inaction, according to reports.

Finally a AAA Survey conducted not long ago says 61 percent of survey recipients said they feared their safety riding in a driverless car.