The California Department of Motor Vehicles produced a set of testing regulations for manufacturers of driverless cars. Those regulations went through a period of public comment and were then submitted for legislative approval. The regulations were approved this week and will become effective on September 16th, 2014.
Interested in the details? Here’s a link to the regulations.
The vast majority of the first half of the regulations involves making sure anyone testing a vehicle has massive ($5 million) insurance coverage. That’s certainly appropriate, but I worry that there are those who might equate proper coverage with safety. But I digress.
It took me a while to find the key to all this, in a section titled “Prohibitions on Operation on Public Roads”:
A manufacturer shall not permit any of its autonomous vehicles to be operated on public roads in California when the operator is not seated in the vehicle’s driver seat and either: monitoring its operations and able to take over physical control of the vehicle; or, in physical control of the vehicle.
OK, that’s better. Looks like there will always be someone behind the wheel, ready to wrest control from the hive-mind. What could go wrong?
Great opportunity for enterprising daredevils!
Can you imagine the compensation Google will pay out if you get hit – even mildly – by one of these? Especially if you agree to sign a NDA.
Cue up “Yakety Sax.”
I hope I’m still alive when self-driving cars become practical. Driving is such a waste of time.