California Releases Draft Regulations For Self-Driving Vehicles

The most surprising aspect of this law is the requirement of a licensed, autonomous-certified driver in the vehicle at all times.

Self-driving cars are already being tested in California by Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Google, Delphi Automotive, Tesla Motors, Bosch, Nissan, Cruise Automation, BMW, Honda, and most recently, Ford, which this week obtained the permit necessary to let its fully autonomous Ford Fusion Hybrid (pictured) loose on California’s public roads. Google will be hoping to sway the DMV with its arguments, failing which, the company many not have any option, but to fall in line with the state’s proposals. According to a strongly-worded official reaction from the company, a few of the restrictions being imposed could hinder its plans of eventually transforming the way people commute on a daily basis by rolling out a fully autonomous vehicle that will not require any human intervention to move from point A to point B, even through heavy city traffic.

Coming to some of the less controversial regulations included in the new set of guidelines, the California DMV says that manufacturers of autonomous cars will require certification from accredited authorities that says in no uncertain terms that the vehicles are safe enough from the cyber security perspective. The proposed rules would restrict the use of driverless cars, banning them from running on the public roads in the state if there is no licensed human driver aboard.

Manufacturers would also need to report driving data on cars they leased to the public, and also notify the DMV if they collected any data beyond what was required to operate the vehicle.

The law also prohibits testing of autonomous commercial vehicles in California.

What makes Google “gravely disappointed” is that after years of hard work, it designed a prototype two-person vehicle that won’t have a steering wheel or pedals in final form.

In response to a DMV statement that “the primary focus of the deployment regulations is the safety of autonomous vehicles and the safety of the public who will share the road with these vehicles”, Luu said that “safety is our highest priority and primary motivator as we do this”.

Safety will likely remain the major concern for automakers going forward.

Nevertheless, any rule adopted by California will have significant impact on the future of autonomous cars. This will be a great initiative if it goes through and will hopefully do a lot good for the autonomous auto industry as a whole.

The DMV will hold further discussions with the public about the theoretical regulations in January and February.