I think Tesla’s engineer’s and machine learning researchers deserve credit for their pioneering and valuable efforts in the domain of self-driving cars. But eager proponents believe that Tesla will someday simply turn on self-driving and unleash robotaxis everywhere. That seems naïve.

Self-driving vehicles can only be phased in slowly on a region-by-region basis. Each region must have a crew of support workers. The populace within a region must be primarily supportive, or the effort will fail.

Consider this scenario: I was driving on a two-lane road after a hurricane and one of the lanes was damaged. A road worker was giving instructions to vehicle drivers by using hand signals and portable road signs. The situation was complicated. The single remaining lane was being used alternately by traffic moving in two directions.

In my opinion road workers must be trained in ways to communicate with self-driving vehicles. Hand signals and portable road signs should be standardized to facilitate precise and unambiguous communication with self-driving vehicles, and these vehicles must be able to recognize and act upon these signals.

For example, there should be a standard Detour sign, but this is a dangerous sign, and its use should be regulated. Criminals will try to abuse it to misdirect self-driving cars. But this danger exists even today without self-driving cars.

Also, there must be a crew of support workers monitoring the road system and updating road maps in real time. This information must be transmitted to self-driving vehicles in real time. For example, when a bridge is obstructed this information must be relayed to vehicles so they will stop routing traffic across the bridge.

Crew members must be able to quickly rescue self-driving vehicles that are confused or stuck. They must use teleoperation or physically travel to the vehicle. Response time must be quick.