The vehicle Google unveiled in May (goo.gl/qDUtgq) was an early mockup—it didn’t even have real headlights! Since then, Google has been working on different prototypes car versions, each designed to test different systems of a self-driving car—for example, the typical “car” parts like steering and braking, as well as the “self-driving” parts like the computer and sensors. Google has now put all those systems together in this fully functional vehicle.
Safety drivers will continue to oversee the vehicle for a while longer, using temporary manual controls as needed while Google continue to test and learn. In the last a few years, 17 states including D.C. have considered approving self-driving cars. While seven different organizations are trying driverless cars, Google is to a great extent the power behind legalization development.
In September, the CA DMV issued testing permits for three companies to test 29 vehicles on public roads, with humans behind the wheel in case of computerized error or poor decision-making. These permits acted to formalize a process that was already underway, as Google has logged around one million driverless miles of testing in recent years..
DMV officials told the Associated Press that the public won’t be permitted to use self-driving cars until it can be certified they don’t pose “an undue risk.” With the technology being so new, part of the problem is that regulations don’t have safety standards to abide by — as of yet there aren't any federal safety standards or independent safety testing organizations. According to the Associated Press the California DMV has three main enforcement paths it could pursue:
"It could follow the current U.S. system, in which manufacturers self-certify their vehicles; it could opt for a European system, in which independent companies verify safety; or the state could (implausibly) get into the testing business".Some of the questions that need to be addressed include determining which traffic laws must be enforced, what happens if and when computers freeze up or are hijacked, and how to manage alternating control between the car and the human driver. There’s also the question of whether a person needs to be in the vehicle at all, let alone a licensed driver.
Despite these concerns, there is a general consensus that driverless cars should be safer than human-driven vehicles. “The car does not get distracted,” Mario Gerla, a UCLA computer science professor who has researched driverless cars, told that “Most of the accidents are caused by human error.” This shift in responsibility will be felt in the legal industry as well.
Legal blogger Eric Turkewitz, a personal injury lawyer with the Turkewitz Law Firm in New York, wrote that while “the potential for error in such heavily software-dependent systems is extraordinary the issue of lawsuits regarding the cars will, I think, be vastly overwhelmed by a huge reduction in collisions that result from the most common forms of human error.” Turkewitz writes that aside from the obvious human-error associated with drunk driving, there are many other accidents due to failure to stop in time and changing lanes without looking — unfortunate events made more likely with the distractions of “email, texts, phone talk and GPS devices.”
California is a leader in transportation and vehicle regulation. Their policies are often adopted at the national level, as has been the case with many fuel standards. In this instance the state is trying to get out ahead of a potentially revolutionary shift in transportation methods, as opposed to playing catch-up as many regions are now doing with rideshare services like Uber.
There may also be some climate and environmental benefits of driverless cars should they come to rule the road. Self-driving cars are highly efficient, could be powered by alternative forms of energy, and are deferential to pedestrians and people on bikes, which could help boost those forms of transportation. However, driverless cars could also make urban sprawl more appealing as cheaper, more convenient rides could encourage lower-density living and even hinder or reverse investment in public transportation infrastructure.
Nonetheless, a recent study by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that when self-driving vehicles are combined with car sharing methods and new vehicle materials, overall CO2 emissions could drop “by up to 95 percent, even when considering the CO2 emitted from the electricity generation.”
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