California’s Democratic Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed into law SB 1298, upholding the legality of autonomous, or self-driving vehicles in the state, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The law clears the way for tests of self-driving cars on public roadways. Google, which is developing such technology and has openly shared its milestones on private roadways and in limited public tests (including one with a legally blind man at the “wheel”), cheered the move. But the state Department of Motor Vehicles still has till January 2015 to formulate new regulations specifically covering self-driving cars.