"One thing missing from the regs: any driving test to pass before letting the robot fly solo. Instead, companies will “self-certify” their vehicles. “That’s like me going to the DMV and saying, believe me, I’m an excellent driver,” says Ryan Calo, who studies robotics law at the University of Washington School of Law. “It makes me a little nervous, honestly.” He would rather see a common requirement, or at least have a third party check the cars out before they hit the public streets."
"The other 49 states may go ahead with their own rules, but California’s position as the home of Silicon Valley gives it outsized influence in this debate. “The DMV’s rules are going to shift a big part of the conversation to the federal level,” says Bryant Walker Smith, who studies self-driving vehicles at the University of South Carolina."