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Google Paying Arizona Residents $20/Hr To Test Self-Driving Cars (mashable.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report on Mashable: Google is paying Arizona residents $20 per hour to test its self-driving vehicles. The 'Self-Driving Vehicle Operator/Operations Associate' needs to have a clean driving record, no criminal history, a BS or a BA degree and the ability to type at least 40 words per minute, according to the job listing. The job involves driving 6-8 hours a day in a two person team, five days a week while monitoring the car's systems with "constant focus" and filling up daily reports. "[Test drivers] give our engineers feedback about how our cars are driving and interacting with others on the road, and can take control of the vehicle if needed," Brian Torcellini, head of operations for Google's Self-Driving Car testing program, told The Arizona Republic. The job listing comes about a month after Google announced it would expand its self-driving car testing program to Phoenix, Arizona. At that announcement, Google said it wants to test how autonomous vehicles behave in Phoenix's desert conditions and high temperatures.
To make this realistic, Google has to include a few vans in the test mix. Into each one approximately 135 'test drivers' will be crammed. These vans will be programmed to drive up and down the I-10/I-19 corridor between Phoenix, Tucson and well south until the extra weight bogging down their suspensions attracts the attention of a Department of Public Safety unit. A cheery high-speed police chase will ensue along the Interstates and through city streets until the van loses control and heads-on with some family driving their Prius to Whataburger for the evening. This will be the cue for all 135 passengers to scramble out and run into the desert in different directions.
These van tests be an ideal platform for debugging of high-speed evasive protocols.