Editor's Note: This article first appeared on Insure.com and is reprinted here with their permission. Click here to read the original post.

The biggest problem facing driverless technology isn't a car maker's ability to install the computer and sensors that will propel a car down an interstate at 70 mph. Both Honda and Google have already done that.

The two bigger problems are:

  • When driverless cars must wind through urban areas where a crisis awaits on every corner: pedestrians on cell phones, children chasing after balls and the inevitable detour or "road under construction" sign.
  • The clusters of laws, customs and, of course, car insurance implications of going driverless.

It is these two obstacles that Peter Sweatman, head of the Mobility Transformation Center (MTC) at the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus, and the MTC hope to navigate, with the help of a public-private partnership that includes five major carmakers, State Farm Mutual, Verizon Communications and Xerox Corp., which does logistical city planning.

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