A closer look
Virginia transportation officials famously built an entirely fake town called Smart Road equipped with highly advanced streetlights, rainfall generators, and dummy buildings just to test experimental driving technology. The state spent millions constructing an elaborate ghost town completely devoid of actual human residents where they can simulate dense fog, heavy snowstorms, and terrible lighting conditions on command. It serves as a dystopian sandbox for automobile manufacturers to hurl driverless cars into artificial blizzards to see if the onboard AI will successfully brake or just relentlessly plow through an empty intersection. Imagine spending taxpayer dollars to build the world's most boring theme park where the only ride is sitting in an autonomous sedan during a fake hurricane!
