Licensed Drivers Required for Self-Drivings Cars in California

California, the largest car market in the United States, rules for self-driving cars, on Wednesday requiring a licensed driver inside the vehicle in case of failure in a plan that stresses safety. The regulations by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) are intended to help nurture the State's nascent but fast-growing autonomous vehicle technology industry while allowing traditional car companies and new entrants like Alphabet Inc and Apple Inc to safely deploy their self-driving cars already in development.

According to Reuters, 11 companies currently have permits to drive autonomous vehicles on public roads in the state, provided there is a licensed driver in the car, with Ford being the most-recent entrant.

The proposed regulations require certification and third-party testing for carmakers, as well as regular reports back to the DMV for a period of three years. Data from that testing will be used to inform future regulation, the DMV said.

San Jose Mercury News says that, though no manufacturer has said that it thinks the cars are ready just yet, at least a dozen are developing the technology, and the most aggressive suggest a model could be ready within a few years. Silicon Valley giant Google has pushed hardest, already building a prototype without a wheel or pedals but rigging the hardware back into the cars pending the long-anticipated regulations.

Under the draft rules, even if Google thinks its car is ready for sale, that wouldn't be immediately possible. Initially, manufacturers would receive a permit for three years, during which time consumers could lease the cars but manufacturers would be required to keep tabs on how safely they are driving and report that performance to the state.

DMV regulation writers struggled with how they would know the technology is safe before letting it go beyond prototype testing, which requires a specially trained driver behind the wheel. The agency was supposed to propose regulations at the start of 2015, but that process has dragged on over issues including how a person could take over when the car concludes it cannot drive safely, how to prevent hackers from seizing control of what amount to computers on wheels, and the privacy of data that the cars collect about their users.

California has long been at the forefront of technology, and the situation is no different when it comes to self-driving cars. Tech Times reports that, California is also one of the few states to have regulations passed that enable carmakers to test their self-driving cars on public roads. California has grappled for several years with how to regulate the technology. The DMV has said it wants the regulations to protect public safety, but not be too onerous so that signature companies such as Google will be stifled in developing a technology with huge life-saving potential.

Self driving cars will not be fully autonomous, but will have a driver in case the system fails until for some time. Google - which is operating its self-driving cars on the streets of Palo Alto, California and Austin, Texas - and other carmakers and suppliers have said the technology to build self-driving cars should be ready by 2020.