The autonomous vehicle industry has been given its first Federal blessing Friday morning. The Department of Transportation is recognizing that it must work alongside technology companies and carmakers if it wants regulations and laws to have a hope of keeping up with driverless cars. But the outstanding question still on every drivers' mind: are these vehicles actually legal?
While not condoning the use of fully driverless cars, the DOT issued a non-binding policy statement to states, advising them to use driverless cars for testing only. The DOT also stressed that some forms of autonomy in vehicles can save lives, like speed adjustment, lane-centering and driver monitoring to watch for dangers like falling asleep at the wheel.
