The federal government’s highway safety agency agrees with Google: Computers that will control cars of the future can be considered their driver.
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In a letter from the NHTSA to Chris Urmson, the head of Google’s ambitious self-driving auto project, the organisation accepted that “If no human occupant of the vehicle can actually drive the vehicle, it is more reasonable to identify the driver as whatever (as opposed to whoever) is doing the driving”, it said.
California, for example, has proposed draft rules that require steering wheels and a licensed driver in all self-driving cars in case of emergency.
The letter, made public on Wednesday, was in response to Google asking the NHTSA to reconsider its stance on a vehicle without a driver being un-roadworthy because its latest generation self-driving cars are devoid of any conditional controls – ie everyone travelling inside them is be definition a passenger.
The U.S. federal transport safety regulator is coming around to the view that rules could be updated so that computers in autonomous cars can be considered as drivers, but added that the rule-making could take some time.
In written requests over the past three months, Google asked the safety agency to interpret federal code in ways that would ease the path to market for its cars.
Google “expresses concern that providing human occupants of the vehicle with mechanisms to control things like steering, acceleration, braking… could be detrimental to safety because the human occupants could attempt to override the (self-driving system’s) decisions”, the NHTSA letter stated.
Major automakers and technology companies such as Google are racing to develop and sell vehicles that can drive themselves at least part of the time.
Google’s self-driving vehicles are now legally the same as human drivers.
However, in light of technological advancements, the NHTSA has changed its perspective.
According to the Businessinsider News, Google said the requirement wasn’t necessary because the electronic driver can stop the cars.
However, Foxx reiterated that the burden lies with manufacturers of autonomous cars to ensure that such machinery is able to meet strict federal safety standards. The NHTSA’s response highlighted how self-driving vehicle technologies are raising several “novel issues” for federal automobile safety regulators. Google is examining NHTSA’s letter and will come up with a plan for how to proceed, said Johnny Luu, a company spokesman. “Even if it were possible for a human occupant to determine the location of Google’s steering control system, and sit immediately behind it, that human occupant would not be capable of actually driving the vehicle as described by Google”.
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Foxx said the government believes self-driving vehicles could eventually cut traffic deaths, decrease highway congestion and improve the environment.
