Computers in Google's self-driving cars can function like human drivers based on a ruling by the United States' highway safety agency. The new definition of "driver" set by the federal government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is good news for the Alphabet company that is designing and testing autonomous vehicles without steering wheels and foot pedals.
In its letter to Google the U.S. agency was in acquiescence with Google about the definition of driver. It stated that in a traditional sense the robot cars will not have a human drivers like the ones who have operated automobiles for over one century, according to CNN.
However, the futuristic cars are not road-ready yet. The NHTSA would have to change many other federal rules of the road before the automobiles could operate on public highways and byways.
Google has written letters of request to the feds during the past three months. It asked NHTSA to interpret federal laws in a way to make it easier for the company to develop its self-driving cars.
The federal safety agency is allowing computer drivers. However, in a February 4 post on its official site it stated that driverless vehicles must comply with other national regulations including foot pedals and hand brakes, unless the rules were changed.
Paul Hemmersbaugh is NHTSA's chief counsel. He explained that Google must show that particular federal standards are not needed for a certain auto design, but the tech giant has not done that yet.
Hemmersbaugh was a little doubtful about the design of Google's driverless car. The reason is that human control would only include pressing a start/stop button.
The chief counsel argued that Google should consider adding foot pedals to its cars, according to Yahoo. That is because they could be needed in certain situations and could reduce the risk of danger.
Last month at the Detroit auto show U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Anthony Foxx reported the federal agency wants driverless cars to be on U.S. roads soon. DOT could help with policies and regulations to do that.
Google's driverless cars have racked up 1.3 million miles of on-road tests since 2009. The tech giant is testing prototype vehicles in the states of California, Texas, and Washington.
Here's a Google self-driving car test: