Amazon’s self-driving cars are coming to downtown Seattle. Safety advocates are not pleased

In the coming months, Zoox plans to test-drive as many as four Toyota Highlander SUVs retrofitted with the company’s autonomous-driving technology and sensors in Seattle’s Belltown, South Lake Union and downtown neighbourhoods. — Zoox/TNS

Tech-industry experts, city planners and even Gov. Jay Inslee have touted self-driving cars as a panacea, cutting congestion and vehicle emissions while reducing collisions.

But an announcement last month from Amazon's self-driving car unit Zoox that it will soon start testing its autonomous vehicles in downtown Seattle drew criticism from transportation-safety advocates. The early promise of the technology, they said, has been overshadowed by a string of crashes and near-misses, due in part to lax oversight of the rapidly growing sector.