NO ONE WILL MISS DRIVERS:

One of the Waymo's primary challenges was biking, now the fastest growing commuting choice in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, nearly 1,000 cyclists were killed in car crashes in 2015, the most recent year for which data was available; 45,000 were injured.

Waymo's cars are programmed to pass bikes in accordance to state laws, usually with three feet of clearance. And if they can't do it, they'll just wait.

"Cyclists, like pedestrians, are some of the most vulnerable road users," Fairfield says. "And so we do want to treat them with extra caution and care."

That kind of patience hasn't been lost on cyclists in Pittsburgh, one of three places where Uber is testing its fleet of self-driving cars. Bike Pittsburgh, a local cycling and pedestrian nonprofit, surveyed people about how they felt sharing the streets with the company's gleaming gray Volvos.

"Honestly, I was predicting that people would be a bit more reluctant to ride around them or would be a little more critical of them," says Eric Boerer, Bike Pittsburgh's advocacy director. "People did feel much more comfortable riding next to autonomous vehicles than they did next to human vehicles. I mean, autonomous vehicles, they don't get angry, they don't have road rage."

The technology that helps make self-driving cars unemotional and conservative is showing up in today's cars: Forward collision warning or automatic braking systems help cars talk to one another and avoid collisions. But Anthony Rowe says cars could use a little help when it comes to detecting cyclists.

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