Governments aren’t particularly adept at grasping new technology, and Google made that point crystal clear at a meeting this week in California where the safety and regulation of self-driving cars were debated.
Google joined the DMV and about 100 representatives from car manufacturers and safety groups, as well as lobbyists and the public, in the first of two workshops to discuss the state’s process of assessing the safety of autonomous cars. Specifically, they’re trying to figure out how the DMV would test self-driving vehicles for certification in the state – a deadline the DMV already blew earlier this year – and something that Bryan Salesky, Google’s program manager for self-driving cars, thinks is beyond the state’s abilities.