Driverless trucks are soon expected to start hauling freight on an interstate connecting Dallas and Houston, despite recent polling showing that American drivers are concerned over the new technology's use on public roads.
Pittsburgh-based Aurora Innovation plans to deploy 20 driverless trucks on Interstate 45.
The autonomous trucks are outfitted with 25 cameras, as well as sensors and antennae that will transmit information to the vehicles. Aurora claims there has only been one minor crash that law enforcement attributed to another vehicle on the road.
"Building on years of development and testing, our work toward the safe and scalable deployment of driverless trucks is nearing a historic milestone," said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora.
Those trucks will hit the roads as Americans remain leary of the technology.
According to AAA's latest survey on autonomous vehicles, most U.S. drivers either express fear (66%) or uncertainty (25%) about fully self-driving vehicles.
A lot of the concern comes after high profile incidents of crashes involving passenger vehciles with self-driving technology.
Tesla settled a lawsuit this month brought by the widow of an Apple engineer whose Model X compact SUV steered itself into a highway divider and burst into flames five years ago.
Aurora trucks have hauled freight over 1 million miles on U.S. highways but there have been humans in the cabs to take over in an emergency. Those human backups will soon be going away.
Safety advocates warn that there is almost no federal regulation regarding driverless trucks on interstates. The companies will need to determine on their own when the trucks are safe enough to operate without humans on board as backups.
Aurora's trucks will carry loads between terminals for FedEx, Uber Freight, Werner and other partners.
Within three or four years, Aurora and its competitors expect to put thousands of self-driving trucks on highways, the Associated Press reports.
