At a conference on self-driving cars, Mike Harp, a government official, asked a seemingly simple question about what happens when his own car meets a driver-less vehicle.“If I honk(按喇叭), will it do any good?”Harp wanted to know. Unfortunately, manufacturers didn’t have ananswer.“We haven’t reached that point of deciding how and whether it would be appropriate for vehicles to react and in which way to honking,” said one of them. The brief exchange highlights a thorn in the side of automakers and policymakers alike;Self-driving cars will have to share the road with human drivers, likely for decades to come. Those vehicles must therefore respond and adapt to the peculiarities and mistakes of humans behind wheel.
在一次关于无人驾驶汽车的会议上，政府官员迈克·哈普提出了一个看似简单的问题，即当他自己的车遇到无人驾驶汽车时会发生什么。“如果我按喇叭，会有什么作用吗？”哈普想知道。不幸的是，制造商们无法回答。“我们还没有达到决定车辆如何以及是否适当地做出反应的阶段，以及应该如何对按喇叭作出反应的阶段，”其中一位制造商说。这次简短的交流突显了汽车制造商和政策制定者们的一个难题，即无人驾驶汽车必须与驾驶员共享道路，可能在未来数十年内才能实现。这些车辆必须因此对驾驶员的怪癖和错误做出反应和适应。

Self-driving technology has already come a long way. Cars being tested on the road today use cameras and radar, for example, to detect the movements of nearby cyclists and pedestrians. There are already driver-assist technologies built into some cars that monitor the speed of vehicles around you, detect potential accidents before they occur, and automatically slow or stop the car to avoid a wreck. In a world where all cars drive themselves, the technology could operate at peak efficiency. Supporters of self-driving cars say that speed limits could be raised and fatal crashes
无人驾驶技术已经取得了长足的进步。例如，如今在道路上测试的汽车使用摄像头和雷达来检测附近的骑车人和行人的动向。已经有一些汽车内置了监视周围车辆速度、在事故发生之前检测潜在事故，并自动减速或停车以避免碰撞的驾驶辅助技术。

largely avoided as no traffic laws are broken and poor drivers become a thing of the past.
支持无人驾驶汽车的人士称，如果所有车辆都自动驾驶，技术可以达到最高效率。速度限制可以提高，致命碰撞可以大部分避免，因为没有违反交通法规，糟糕的驾驶员也将成为过去的事情。

But the change to driver-less vehicles is expected to be gradual, and will likely start with ride-sharing services, as the costs of personally owning a self-driving car remain extremely high. That means man and machine will have to play nice on roadways.“There are so many interesting situations,”such as honking a horn, Harp said. When “another car with a driver meets a self-driving car without a driver in there and they realize that, it will frighten some people. How that’s going to be dealt with will be part of the fun part of this process.
但是对于无人驾驶汽车的转变预计将是渐进的，并且可能从共享乘车服务开始，因为个人拥有无人驾驶汽车的成本仍然非常高。这意味着人类和机器将不得不在道路上友好相处。“有很多有趣的情况，比如按喇叭”哈普说。当“另一辆有司机的车遇到一辆没有驾驶员的无人驾驶汽车时，他们意识到这一点，会让一些人感到害怕。如何处理这种情况将是这一过程中有趣的部分。

Any driver can tell you that driving involves a lot of social interaction, particularly the hand gestures and eye contact of fellow drivers. Much of that interaction between drivers will eventually be digital as cars increasingly collect data and share it with the vehicles around them. If a car speeds up, slows down or prepares for a stop, for example, that would be communicated immediately and electronically to the other vehicles on the road. Like self-driving technology however, it will be years before the vehicle-to-vehicle communication is common.
任何司机都可以告诉您，驾驶涉及许多社会互动，特别是其他司机的手势和眼神交流。随着汽车越来越多地收集数据并与周围的车辆共享数据，这种互动在未来将逐渐数字化。例如，如果一辆车加速、减速或准备停车，那么这个信息立即会通过电子方式传达给道路上的其他车辆。然而，就像自动驾驶技术一样，车辆之间的通信普及还需要数年时间。

That challenge is being taken into account as driver-less vehicles are tested on public roads But the honking issue is particularly tricky because it’s subject to interpretation, It’s going to be really hard for a driver-less vehicle, even if it hears the honk, to figure out what that honk means.
这个挑战正在被考虑在公共道路上测试无人驾驶车辆。但是按喇叭的问题特别棘手，因为它受到解释的影响。无人驾驶汽车即使听到了喇叭声，也很难弄清楚那声音的含义。

1. In paragraph 1,“a thorn”refers to _.
   A. the issue that human drivers have peculiarities and make mistakes
   B. the prediction that self-driving cars will be common in the future
   C. the fact that driver-less cars co-exist with ears driven by humans
   D. the technology that ensures driver-less cars are safe on the road
   答案：C

2. Which of the following can be inferred from the last two paragraph?
   A. Most people don’t advocate self-driving technology
   B. Inter-vehicle communication is superior to inter-personal interaction
   C. Social interaction will decrease among drivers behind the wheel
   D. More data is needed to make self-driving technology a reality much sooner
   答案：D

3. Which example is used to illustrate that self-driving technology is not something new?
   A. A car communicates its speed to the other vehicles
   B. A driver-less ear is likely to frighten human drivers
   C. Speed limits are raised in a world of self-driving cars
   D. Car cameras and radar are used to detect moving people.
   答案：D

4. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?
   A. The simple question about self-driving cars we still can’t answer
   B. A golden opportunity for driver-less cars we can’t afford to miss
   C. Hidden secrets of self-driving cars we can’t reveal
   D. Potential risks of driver-less cars we can’t ignore
   答案：D