Nevada Becomes First State To Approve Self-Driving Cars

Nevada has become the first official state in the US to sanction the test operation of self-driving vehicles on public roads.

When we think of Nevada, we think of deserts, amazing sceneries and Salt Lake City but it’s official now, self-driving vehicles are regulated by law. The Legislative Commission of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles set out the basic guidelines to test autonomous vehicles on public roads and approved regulations. Companies who wish to test such vehicles can refer to the new law and try their findings on the open roads of Nevada.

After a few car manufacturers, insurance companies, universities, law enforcement agencies, Google, as well as other car testing professionals got together, the state government looked into it more seriously.

What Does This Mean? So far it means that self-driving cars are not street-legal yet. But what it does means is most likely these regulations will serve as the basic building blocks for other states to write laws on how, what and when autonomous cars cane be driven and tested on regular roads. While this technology might mean little to us car lovers who regal at the idea of dosing the correct acceleration in the perfect turn with the right rpm, shockingly, there are those who do not feel the same fun and exhilaration when driving and would prefer doing something else at the wheel. Need convincing? You can already witness the rising amount of drivers texting while driving, as well as those eating, putting on make up, or simply sitting cock-eyed leaning towards the middle of the car lazily steering with a wrist resting on top of the steering wheel. Clearly, these people don’t enjoy driving and would rather have this constraint be handled automatically.

How Will You Know It’s One? What if you want to know if the vehicle in front of you is an autonomous car? Have no fear, the good state of Nevada will make it wear a red license plate to warn you.

How Does It Work? By now your burning question should be, what if there is only one person in the car and they doze off, or worse yet, pass out? There is an answer to this also. The cars have to have at least two people inside, hopefully one at the wheel able to take control if necessary, although the legalese only mentions “able to take control”. Could this be taken to mean anyone in the car who could swoop in the front seat and regain control of the car? Obviously, I’m exaggerating but we have seen some strange things on our roads so far. To beef up security, each vehicle has to be equipped with a black box device, similar to those stored on airplane that will store data from the car. This information will make it possible to retrieve data 30 seconds before a collision and crash.

Bruce Breslow, Director of the Department of Motor Vehicles is very positive about the venture and sees the state of Nevada as leading to the future of the automobile and how they will be driven. Our country stretches on end and having an automated system to guide you from point A to point B is not as ludicrous as it seems when driving 3,000 miles. After all, airplanes have been flying with automatic pilots for decades and can even take off and land with those systems. It has proven to be reliable and have saved lives all around.

Who Is Benefiting? If you recall, Google has been testing a modified Toyota Prius with impressive success and even announced they had already covered 160,000 miles without serious accidents. There was an accident but it was determined to have been caused by a human, not the system tested. Google isn‘t the only one testing self-driving cars. Audi and Volkswagen have been interested in such a technology and also have a considerable amount of experience.

Which leads us to conclude with more fundamental questions and existential philosophical points. While spot to spot transportation a la Star Trek is still far away from commercial use, the need for long distance driving aid is a real one. When considering smaller commutes, an autopilot aid of some sort makes sense for people with handicaps, whether mental or physical. Will it have a tendency to reinforce laziness at the wheel? Maybe fun cars to drive are heading the way of the Dodo bird, after all. Self-driving systems on cars have a place in our lives and Nevada has taken the first step.

Written by Nicolas Zart, an auto news reporter from TorqueNews.
Image source of Google's Self Driving Car: Google Toyota

Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.