Uber driverless car trial gets off to a rocky start

Is the Uber driverless car colour blind?

Uber only yesterday, to much fanfare, announced its expansion of its driverless car trial into its home city of San Francisco.

However, its autonomous vehicle has already been caught on video posted to YouTube blatantly running a red light as it zooms across a pedestrian crossing outside the city's Museum of Modern Art.

The trial, which is a collaboration with Swedish car maker Volvo, uses the car maker's existing XC90 SUV but adds the ride-sharing company's own hardware and software, which is clearly visible on the roof.

Uber also stated when announcing the trial that every vehicle would still have an Uber technician behind the wheel to supervise the car's operation. But who will supervise the supervisor?

Driverless car technology is still in its infant stage and these trials are there to help iron out all the difficulties that happen with these vehicles.

Though, incidents like this raise interesting questions about who is at fault when driverless technology goes wrong.

Michigan this week enacted legislation that made it the first in the US to establish comprehensive regulations for testing, use and future sales of driverless cars.

The law allows public road testing of vehicles without steering wheels, gas or brake pedals or any need for human control. It lets auto and tech companies operate driverless ride-sharing services and also lays out rules for how self-driving cars can be sold to the public once the technology has been tested and certified.

In Australia no such laws exist and the legal framework still insists that a driver be in charge of the vehicle.