Imagine the scene, the traffic pulls over the car, raps on the window and ask the driver to step ha-waayy from the vee-hie-kul.
Cop pauses, peers into the window, steps back, reaches for his gun and talks into his radios mike:
"Looks like we have ourselves another of them runaway robot cars, Kowalski."
Cop pauses, peers into the window, steps back, reaches for his gun and talks into his radios mike:
"Looks like we have ourselves another of them runaway robot cars, Kowalski."
It CAN happen. Soon to, as Nevada at the end of February 2012 became the first state in the United States where self-driving cars may legally go out on public roads. The legislative commission of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles has set out guidelines for companies — like Google, Audi, BWM and VW to name a few — who need to test their autonomous vehicles on public roads.
They also include a set of requirements for people who’d like to “drive” such vehicles. The legislative effort started six months ago, and involved consultation with car manufacturers, insurance companies, testing professionals, universities, law-enforcement agencies, and Google. Not all work is done yet (licensing procedures are still being developed, for example) and self-driving cars are not going to be made street-legal immediately, but the regulations are likely to serve as an inspiration for other states that are also considering opening up to this technology. The cars will have to have at least two people inside, with one person able to take control if necessary. Each vehicle is to be equipped with a black box-type device to store data from the autonomous system sensors, so that it’s possible to retrieve information from at least 30 seconds before a collision. “Nevada is the first state to embrace what is surely the future of automobiles,” said Bruce Breslow, the director of the Department of Motor Vehicles. This is very good news for Google. The company announced back in 2010 that its autonomous cars have already been extensively tested, and travelled 257 495 kilometres without an accident — although one of the cars was involved in a pile-up caused by a human. The Google-modified Toyota Prius is not the only driverless car waiting in the queue, however, with Audi and Volkswagen already well-versed in the game. We are unlikely to see a comprehensive autonomous transportation system like the autonomo concept anytime soon, but it’s high time for autonomous cars to start showing off their amazing skills on the public roads. — WR.
