Google self driving car public roadIf self-driving cars were to catch on, lawmakers would need to come up with new rules and laws to govern such vehicles. As it stands there is no universal law as governments and regulatory bodies are still trying to figure it out. However over in California, a state in which many carmakers seem to have chosen to test their autonomous vehicles, new rules have been set.

These rules won’t necessarily be the same rules we can expect in the future, but rather it is a roadmap in which we can expect to see rules and laws progress to. According to the new rules set out by California’s DMV, one of them involves having a driver with a valid driving license to be behind the wheel at all times.

The vehicle must also have a steering wheel to allow said driver to take over in the event something goes wrong. This makes sense, but at the same time companies like Google are apparently not too thrilled by them. This is because Google’s prototype self-driving cars do not come with a steering wheel amongst other features one would expect from a car.

That being said, we expect that those rules will change over time as the technology becomes more advanced and as carmakers start to introduce new features. According to the DMV, “Given the potential risks associated with deployment of such a new technology, DMV believes that manufacturers need to obtain more experience in testing driverless vehicles on public roads prior to making this technology available to the general public.”

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