Google Petitions Nevada To Allow Driver-Less Cars To Legally Operate On Its Roads

[mimo91]

Google is petitioning the state of Nevada to allow the company to operate its self-driving cars. If the technology giant succeeds, the state would become the first in the U.S. to allow the cars to legally operate, the New York Times reports.

Last year, Google said it had engineered cars to operate without drivers as it works to expand into areas beyond its core search engine division. When pressed by a reporter, Google admitted in 2010 that it had test driven robotic hybrid vehicles more than 140,000 miles on California roads, including Highway 1 that runs between Los Angeles and San Francisco, right near the company's Mountain View headquarters.

Aside from the autonomous vehicle testing, Google is also lobbying the state to allow an exemption in current laws that would allow texting while driving. Google's driver-less cars employ cameras and a scanning laser to adjust speed and direction. One Google engineer described the technology as "super cruise control," affirming it is intended to assist rather than replace a human driver.

During its initial testing of the cars, Google said that each vehicle was overseen by a driver and a second Google employee. The project has been spearheaded by artificial intelligence researcher Sebastian Thrun, who successfully engineered an autonomous vehicle when he was a Stanford professor in 2005.