Google boss touts self-driving cars as the safer alternative
No hands … Google's Sergey Brin in front of a self-driving car. Photo: AP
MOUNTAIN VIEW: The Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, and the California Governor, Jerry Brown, carpooled to work on Tuesday in a white Toyota Prius, but no one was driving.
Mr Brown hitched a futuristic ride to Google's Mountain View headquarters to sign landmark legislation that will allow self-driving cars to hit California streets by 2015.
The Governor had a look of utter amazement as he stepped out of Google's ''autonomous'' Prius after a test-drive with Mr Brin, who is so used to the robot car that he's tired of driving regular ones.
It will be at least a few years before driverless cars reach the market.
''I expect that self-driving cars are going to be far safer than human-driven cars,'' Mr Brin said to an audience of reporters and Google staff, who gave their boss the biggest roar of applause when he said: ''Self-driving cars do not run red lights.''
The search giant pushed the driverless car bill, overwhelmingly approved last month, as major car makers such as Ford, Audi and BMW and researchers work on making the cars available.
Google's autonomous Prius requires human operation in situations like construction zones that are hard for computers to navigate. And there are many other concerns that still need to be worked out.
Car makers opposed the bill because of confusion over who would be legally liable if someone alters a car after it is sold to make it autonomous - and it then gets into a crash.
And consumer groups argue Google and others are only interested in using the onboard computers to track people's movements as they do on the web.