My first self-driving car ride with an empty driver seat was surprisingly not terrifying

Last year at CES, I rode in what felt like an endless stream of self-driving cars up and down the Las Vegas Strip. Lo and behold, for every ride a "safety engineer" or "operator" was inches from the steering wheel, foot hovering above the brake. Safety first, I get it. But still, lame.

This year Russian self-driving company Yandex moved the safety driver to the passenger seat. The front seat was wide open, and we drove for 20 minutes through the streets of Sin City. Decidedly not lame.

Yandex, which has been likened to the Russian Google, already runs a robo-taxi service in a small Russian city with five Yandex cars dropping off riders (free for now) with a safety operator in the passenger seat.  Read more...