As John Paul drove to Stamford in mid-October in yet another autumn deluge, he kept his hands tight on the wheel despite the car crammed with the latest technologies to keep it in a safe cocoon within its own lane.

As a traffic safety manager for AAA, Paul knows there’s no substitute for an alert driver — but he is in a better position than most to hazard a guess as to when that substitute may surface, and says the day could be coming sooner than anyone might think.

Paul was among the speakers at a AAA conference on self-driving vehicles held Oct. 12 at the University of Connecticut Stamford and aired on CT-N. The city is in the early vanguard of municipalities to volunteer to test autonomous vehicles on its roadways, with tight controls in place to reduce the possibility of mishaps.  

The possibilities inherent in the technology have beguiled advocates and fueled opposition from others, particularly so since March when a self-driving Uber vehicle hit a pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz., in a fatal accident that dominated headlines. For his part, Paul told conference attendees that he took no chances this month en route to Stamford.