Government Will Consider Google Computer to Be Car’s Driver

Computers that control cars of the future can be considered drivers just like humans, the federal government’s highway safety agency has found.

Hemmersbaugh said the description of Google for its self-driving vehicles is comparable to the Level 4 Full Self-Driving Automation definition of a preliminary policy statement in May 2013 of the NHTSA for automated vehicles.

As a premise of the interpretation, “NHTSA will interpret “driver” in the context of Google’s described motor vehicle design as referring to the SDS [self-driving system], and not to any of the vehicle occupants”, Paul Hemmersbaugh, chief counsel, said in the letter.

Last year’s study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute revealed that self-driving cars were found to be at least twice as likely to get into an accident on public roadways as regular cars. The decision presents a huge moment in the effort to introduce autonomous driving to American roads, which is hindered as much by technological hurdles and regulatory questions. In the letter, NHTSA said that Google also must certify that self-driving technology meets standards developed for cars with human drivers and that the agency itself must have some way to determine compliance. However, it does offer an insight into how the NHTSA is leaning when it comes to having vehicles on the road whose driving is the sole responsibility of the car’s AI brain and various sensors.

According to Google, its SDVs are fully autonomous motor vehicles, i.e., vehicles whose operations are controlled exclusively by a self-driving system (SDS). The vehicles would be without any of the standard controls available to human operators, such as a steering wheel, brake, accelerator pedal and many other functions commonly found in current-generation automobiles.

The driver is described in the 49 CFR 571.3 rule under the federal motor vehicle standards as the occupant of a vehicle seated behind the steering wheel. While NHTSA acquiesced to Google’s request that its self-driving system be treated as a legal driver, it did not agree on the vehicle interior appeals. Google executives have said they would likely partner with established automakers to build self-driving cars.

With Amazon taking to the skies with drone delivery services, it seems that Google has its feet firmly grounded to take on the land-haul, potentially making human truck drivers, with their annoying habits of sleeping and taking pee breaks, obsolete.

On Wednesday, longtime advocate Clarence Ditlow who is head of the Centre for Auto Safety, told Reuters: “It’s better to write a stand-alone rule for driverless vehicles”.

However the recent approval by the NHTSA could prove to be a game changer. Now, Google has had a major legal breakthrough, and has been officially informed that their autonomous operating system could be recognized as a “driver” under the law.

Driverless cars still have far to travel before humans give up their control of driving over to a computer.