A California state senator –Alex Padilla- plans to arrive at a press conference at the Sacramento capitol today in a Google Inc.modified Toyota Prius that drives itself.
The announcement of new legislation by Senator Alex Padilla that was written with Google’s input is timed to coincide with new regulations allowing the world’s first autonomous vehicles to be road-tested and registered in neighboring Nevada. The bill reflects “Mountain View” -A California-based Google’s- the latest push to show the policy makers that while the cars of the future aren’t ready for public use yet, it’s time for laws to accommodate them.
Jay Nancarrow -Google spokesman- said that the bill offered by Padilla would direct the California Highway Patrol to develop regulations like Nevada’s for testing the self-driving vehicles on the state’s roadways and for their future operation by consumers, as such rules provide “a clearer path” in developing the technology, as Bloomberg stated.
Major carmakers are working on self-driving prototypes while rolling out semi-autonomous features – such as parking assistance, lane departure warning systems and adaptive cruise control -on premium vehicles now, and its Google’s car that’s attracted the most attention and inspired this regulatory push.
Google’s autonomous cars have driven themselves 200,000 miles in California -across the Golden Gate Bridge, along the Pacific Coast Highway and on Hollywood Boulevard- as the company stated.
