Researchers Dress Up As Car Seats to Create the Illusion That Their Cars Are Completely Self-Driving

In August, we wrote about a driver dressed up as a car seat in order to give the illusion of a driverless car. It was later discovered that the driver was part of an autonomous car program through the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. This very same program was profiled in a thoughtful Wired video essay.

A man dressed as a car seat to fool pedestrians and drivers into believing his van was driving itself. Yeah it’s hilarious, but it’s all in the name of autonomous vehicle research.