If you’ve always wanted a job title that’s an oxymoron, Google has the position for you: Self-driving car “driver.”
Google needs drivers to sit behind the steering wheel for six to eight hours a day to road test its self-driving cars in Phoenix.
The drivers will need to be able to take over control of the car if necessary, a requirement for the cars to operate on public streets. And they will have to able to type 40 words a minute to write up “detailed, accurate feedback” reports to Google engineers.
Google will reportedly pay $20 an hour and sign drivers to 12-month to 24-month contracts, executives with the program told the Arizona Republic.
Google’s job posting said it is looking for drivers to “operate comfortably in a fast-paced environment, sometimes managing up to four communication channels simultaneously via various high- and low-tech mediums.”
Google will be using the Lexus RX450 hybrid SUVs with self-driving features, rather than the gumdrop shaped self-driving cars being built specifically for Google. It was already testing cars in Austin, Texas; Kirkland, Washington; and its hometown of Mountain View, Calif.
The company now has 23 of the Lexus self-driving cars on the road and 34 of the gumdrop cars. The fleet is driving about 10,000 to 15,000 miles a week in self-driving mode for a total of 1.6 million miles.
The company says all but one of the accidents so far have been the fault of human drivers in other vehicles. The one self-driving car the company admitted was at fault was involved in a very minor fender bender that caused no injuries.