Add today's date to the history books. The first self driving vehicle in New York State just took on the streets of Downtown Albany...

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Peter Brooks
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Remember back in May how we told you that New York State was going to begin allowing driverless vehicles to be tested not only in New York but specifically here in the Capital Region? Well, history has officially been made folks.

Peter Brooks
Peter Brooks
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The car company Audi was the first to get a permit for the pilot program and today tested their level 3 prototype known as 'Jack' on the streets of downtown Albany. According to News10 'Jack' can safely allow hands-free driving on highways, but does require someone be in the drivers seat and paying attention to take over at a moment’s notice. Apparently the car

Looks at the environment around the road all the sensors it has about a 360 degree view of traffic in the road around it. It’s going to look for about 30 different conditions to be in place and then it will tell the driver I can drive hands free

and can even

Come up on slower moving traffic and turn on its turn signal and pass the slower cars in front of it.

This whole technology kind of blows me away. I mean as a kid I kind of thought by now we would have flying cars like in the Jetsons but this certainly feels like we are getting closer to that becoming a reality.

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Peter Brooks
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The cars travel at the posted speed limits on the roadways so if you are trying to get somewhere a bit quicker they say you will have to take over as driver yourself but hey, if you don't have to actually drive the car you should be able to leave with plenty of time to spare right?

The company is hoping to have cars such as 'Jack' on the market by 2021and the NYS DMV says that it's excited for that because self driving cars would,

Enhance mobility for handicap and elderly drivers and believe it or not she thinks hands free driving will reduce the amount of crashes and improve safety on our roads.

While I could see the benefits of that I still have some reservations about computer powered cars. What if someone hack's into that and takes you on a crazy ride or won't let you out?!?  What if something malfunctions? How do you protect yourself from other drivers driving themselves on the road? Ha ha I don't know maybe i have just seen way to many movies.

What do you think? Are you excited for self driving cars to be on the Capital Region roadways?

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