NHTSA: Google’s self-driving system is now legally considered ‘a driver’

Updated Feb 15, 2016
This Lexus RX450h is just one of the car’s in Google’s fleet of autonomous test vehicles.This Lexus RX450h is just one of the car’s in Google’s fleet of autonomous test vehicles.

Google wants to change what people consider a “driver” of a vehicle, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is legally making that possible.

The NHTSA released its response to a letter Google sent the agency in November 2015 about regulations regarding the Self-Driving Car Project, and the NHTSA said that the company’s artificial intelligence system used to drive a vehicle is legally considered a “driver.”

“NHTSA will interpret ‘driver’ in the context of Google’s described motor vehicle design as referring to the [self-driving system], and not to any of the vehicle occupants. We agree with Google its [self-driving vehicle] will not have a ‘driver’ in the traditional sense that vehicles have had drivers during the last more than one hundred years,” the NHTSA said in its letter.

“… If no human occupant of the vehicle can actually drive the vehicle, it is more reasonable to identify the ‘driver’ as whatever (as opposed to whoever) is doing the driving. In this instance, an item of motor vehicle equipment, the [self-driving vehicle], is actually driving the vehicle.”

The NHTSA’s decision to consider a self-driving car its own driver could help speed up the development of the technology and goes a long way toward making a future possible where cars do the driving.

Kelly Blue Book senior analyst Karl Brauer told Reuters that while there are still plenty legal issues about autonomous vehicles, the NHTSA has taken a big step forward with its declaration.

“[If] NHTSA is prepared to name artificial intelligence as a viable alternative to human-controlled vehicles, it could substantially streamline the process of putting autonomous vehicles on the road,” he said.

The NHTSA said various regulations in place on the normal vehicles today could be reevaluated down the line. Google wants to offer driverless vehicles without typical equipment that wouldn’t be needed without a traditional human driver like rearview mirrors, steering wheels and brake pedals. But the NHTSA would have to make a decision to waive some of those restrictions.

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The NHTSA does want to make the development of the technology a bit less legally ambiguous, however, and it said it would write guidelines for autonomous vehicles within six months.