The biggest drawback of driverless cars

A Waymo sitting in traffic in San Francisco. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Driverless cars have the potential to substantially reduce the death toll from likely the most dangerous everyday activity in American life: driving. So it might surprise you to know that the very people who are working to make transportation safer, more pleasant, and more humane are actually pretty divided on them. 

That is because if driverless cars ever become pervasive enough on American roads to make a dent in the US’s sky-high car fatality rate...