How an isolated city is creating a climate-friendly ride-sharing service

Long before Uber and Lyft, the small, primarily Latino city of Huron, California already had an informal ridesharing service.

It's all clear ahead for an informal ride
sharing service in Huron, California.

Leon: “It’s been happening for as long as I can recall.”

Lifelong resident Rey León says the drivers, known as “Raiteros,” are mostly retired farm workers.

They use their own vehicles to drive carless residents to doctor’s visits and other appointments in Fresno, which is about 50 miles away and hard to reach by bus. León says the Raiteros provide a critical way to connect the town’s low-income residents with the services of the larger city.

Read Eileen Mignoni’s story from Yale Climate Connections - “How an isolated city is creating a climate-friendly ride-sharing service.”

Who’s to blame when driverless cars have an accident?

The news that an Uber self-driving vehicle has killed a pedestrian in the US has made headlines around the world.

Autonomous vehicles are information-rich platforms
thanks to the range of sensors on board that track,
monitor and measure everything.

It’s a reminder that the era of self-driving cars is fast approaching. Decades of research into advanced sensors, mapping, navigation and control methods have now come to fruition and autonomous cars are starting to hit the roads in pilot trials.

But partial or full autonomy raises the question of who is to blame in the case of an accident involving a self-driving car? In conventional (human-driven) cars, the answer is simple: the driver is responsible because they are in control. When it comes to autonomous vehicles, it isn’t so clear cut.

Read the CSIRO blog - “Who’s to blame when driverless cars have an accident?”

(We managed to resolve the legal intricacies surrounding the activities, and accidents, involving millions privately owned, individually driven cars and so a self-driving vehicle should not be too complex, just different - Robert McLean)