Self-Driving Cars Coming to NoVa Highways

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Self-driving cars have been evaluated in recent years at test tracks in Virginia and other parts of the country, but they will soon face a tougher challenge - the congested roads and highways of Northern Virginia.

Virginia Tech plans to bring self-driving cars to the region as part of an initiative to test automated vehicles, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Tuesday. The univesity’s Transportation Institute will test-drive the vehicles on portions of Interstates 95, 495 and 66, as well as on U.S. 29 and U.S. 50.

The initiative was announced Monday in Pittsburgh at a meeting of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, according to media reports. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and Department of Motor Vehicles are involved in the initiative.

Virginia will join California, three other states and Washington, D.C., in allowing the testing of fully automated cars on public roads, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. The cars will be required to have a driver at the wheel to take over in case of a computer malfunction.

The technology is not yet available to the public, though the self-driving cars developed by Google have drawn publicity for the Internet company. Google’s vehicles have traveled almost 2 million miles since 2009, mostly in the western U.S.