California Officially Legalizes the Robot Car
by MATT GALLAGHER, Red Herring
California became the third state to legalize self driving cars, thanks to a special visit to Google’s Mountainview headquarters by Governor Jerry Brown, who signed the legislation after taking a “test drive” in a Google driverless vehicle, according to Tecca. Though Google has had robot cars on California roads since 2010, and the practice has always been officially legal as there was no legislation to prevent it, the state passed the law in order to make it official before any anti-self driving legislation reared its ugly head in the state.
Though California was the first place Google tested the cars, Nevada and Florida beat the sunshine state to make the practice officially legal. Its fleet of a dozen robot cars has logged more than 300,000 miles. The only accidents that have ever taken place with the self driving cars were the fault of another driver.
“Today we’re looking at science fiction becoming tomorrow’s reality — the self-driving car,” Brown said. “Anyone who gets inside a car and finds out the car is driving will be a little skittish, but they’ll get over it.”