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<H1><A
href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/02/17/147006012/when-the-car-is-the-driver"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">When The Car Is The Driver</FONT></A>.</H1>
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<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">This week the state of Nevada finalized new
rules that will make it possible for robotic self-driving cars to receive their
own special driving permits. It's not quite driver's licenses for robots — but
it's close.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">The other day I went for a spin in a robotic
car. This car has an $80,000 cone-shaped laser mounted on its roof. There are
radars on the front, back and sides. Detailed maps help it navigate.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Do people notice it's a self-driving car and
gawk?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"We get a lot of thumbs up," says Anthony
Levandowski, one of the leaders of Google's self-driving car project. "People
drive by and then they wave. I wish they would keep their eyes on the
road."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Levandowski is in the passenger seat with a
laptop showing him what the car can see. Chris Urmson is behind the wheel. But
his hands are in his lap and the steering wheel is gently turning back and
forth, tracing the contours of California's busy Highway 85.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"And it can adjust the speed. If there is a
particularly tight corner, it will slow down for that," Urmson says. "It adjusts
speed to stay out of blind spots of other vehicles. It tries to match speed with
traffic."</FONT></P>
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<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Urmson has been working on this technology for
close to a decade. His first car managed to travel just 11 miles on a dusty
road. Google's vehicle is a </FONT><A
href="http://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_thrun_google_s_driverless_car.html"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">giant leap forward</FONT></A><FONT
face="Times New Roman">.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"When we got this on the freeway and it was
doing 70 miles an hour and just smoothly driving along the road, you could taste
it — the technology," Urmson says. "You could really feel the impact and how
it's going to change people's lives. It was just amazing."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">While he was talking, a motorcycle cut us off.
The car saw the move coming, and we hardly even noticed.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Google's fleet of robotic cars has driven more
than 200,000 miles over highways and city streets in California and Nevada.
Google did this testing in kind of a legal limbo. These cars aren't forbidden,
but, "There was no permission granted for any of that to happen by anybody,"
says Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist and robotic car
enthusiast.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"It's essential that there be a place to do
tests," he says. "There's two ways to do it — the seek-forgiveness strategy and
the seek-permission strategy. Frankly, the 200,000 hours I think that have been
driven here in California — that's a seek-forgiveness strategy.
Right?"</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">If anything went wrong, Google would have had a
huge amount of explaining to do. So last year, the company hired a lobbyist in
Nevada.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"The state of Nevada is close, it's a lot easier
to pass laws there than it is in California," Levandowski says.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">He says Google convinced the state Legislature
to pass a law making robotic cars explicitly legal. But the Legislature went
further than just creating a place to test these cars — it ordered the
Department of Motor Vehicles to create basically a driver's license for these
robot cars.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"I thought it was great," says Bruce Breslow,
director of the Nevada DMV. "My grandfather took me to the 1964 World's Fair in
New York City many times. And they were promising me the car of the future as an
8-year-old, and I thought to myself, this finally could be it."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Starting March 1, companies will be able to
apply to test self-driving cars on Nevada roads.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"The test vehicles will be Nevada's first red
license plate since the 1940s," Breslow says. Think of it like a learner's
permit — those bright red plates will let everyone know there's a student robot
driver behind the wheel.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"And eventually when these vehicles are sold, it
will be the first ever neon green license plate that the state of Nevada will
ever issue — green meaning go, and the future's arrived," Breslow
says.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Google says it will probably be years before
cars like this go on sale. But Jurvetson, the venture capitalist, says he's
convinced this technology could save thousands of lives "today, already, right
now."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">Robots are never distracted. They don't text or
drink or get tired. They see things no human can.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">"That front radar catches bounces off the
ground," Jurvetson says. "We were driving behind an 18-wheeler, and we saw the
vehicles in front of the 18-wheeler — vehicles we could not see with our eye —
because the signal bounced off the pavement ... at a glancing angle underneath
the 18-wheeler. And so no human will ever have the amount of information that
these cars have when they are driving."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman">While Nevada may be the first state to create a
licensing system for self-driving cars, it won't be the last; Hawaii, Florida
and Oklahoma are already following suit. And Jurvetson says one day we may be
asking ourselves if humans should still be allowed to drive.</FONT></P></DIV>
<P class=tags><FONT face="Times New Roman">Tags: </FONT><A
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=128216998"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">robots</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman">, </FONT><A
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=125099562"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Google</FONT></A></P></DIV>
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<H3 class=conheader><FONT face="Times New Roman">Related NPR Stories</FONT></H3>
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<DIV class=simple><A
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130592626&ps=rs"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Google Isn't The First To Dream Of Robotic
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