Cal­i­for­nia is fol­low­ing Neva­da in adopt­ing dri­ver­less cars to be used in the state in the next few years. The Cal­i­for­nia leg­is­la­ture has just passed a bill sent to Gov. Jer­ry Brown for approval or veto. If it gets approved, the state’s Dept. of Motor Vehi­cles has until Jan­u­ary 2015 to deter­mine stan­dards for cars oper­at­ing on self-dri­ving tech­nolo­gies. SB 1298 from Sen. Alex Padil­la, D-Van Nuys, was passed unan­i­mous­ly by the Sen­ate the last week of August fol­low­ing the Assembly’s 74–2 approval the day before.

Google and Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty will con­tin­ue to play a crit­i­cal role in the devel­op­ment and test­ing of dri­ver­less cars, which are main­ly being done on mod­i­fied ver­sions of the Toy­ota Prius. Safe­ty is the key issue, with 99% of all traf­fic and fatal acci­dents being attrib­uted to some form of human error or imper­fec­tion. Sup­port­ers of dri­ver­less cars also talk about the fuel effi­cien­cy and traf­fic grid­lock reduc­tion ben­e­fits that dri­ver­less cars would bring to jam-packed high­ways.

Automak­ers would have to get their dri­ver­less cars approved by the state, and then licensed dri­vers would apply to become back­up oper­a­tors of the approved autonomous cars. Dri­vers will still need to sit behind the wheel, in case their dri­ving skills are need­ed. Ford, Audi, BMW, and oth­er automak­ers are work­ing to man­u­fac­ture the world’s first “autonomous” vehi­cles for con­sumers. It’s expect­ed to take at least five years for these cars to hit the mar­ket.

Related Articles:

NHTSA Strict on State Testing of Driverless Cars and then Loosens Up Driverless, Autonomous Cars Could Take Longer to Go Mainstream than Predicted Does California Really Need Driverless Cars? Volvo Adding Driverless Feature Drivers Can Choose to Use or Avoid