The full story is at Wired and I recommend it http://www.wired.com/2016/02/feds-say-theyll-count-computers-as-human-drivers/
A few snippets with some highligting
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT says that when it comes to regulating self-driving cars, computers and software systems can be considered the “driver” of the vehicle. It’s a major moment in the effort to introduce autonomous driving to America’s roads, which is hampered as much by regulatory questions as by technological hurdles. But really, it’s just a starting point for figuring out how to update the arcane labyrinth of rules that govern how our cars work now.
The news came in a letter from the branch of the Department of Transportation that handles car regulations, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), to Google, which had asked for clarification on rules that pertain to the self-driving car it’s developing, which lacks a steering wheel and pedals. “NHTSA will interpret ‘driver’ in the context of Google’s described motor vehicle design as referring to the SDS [self-driving system], and not to any of the vehicle occupants,” the feds’ letter to Google says. “If no human occupant of the vehicle can actually drive the vehicle, it is more reasonable to identify the ‘driver’ as whatever (as opposed to whoever) is doing the driving.”....And boy, are there a lot of details. Title 49, Subtitle B, Chapter V, Part 571 of the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, “Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards,” is a thousand-page monster that lays out, with excruciating precision, the standards manufacturers must follow for any passenger car (or bus, or motorcycle) they intend to sell. Those rules are “arguably anachronistic,” Walker Smith says, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to update.
Defining the car’s operating system as its driver brings up two big problems. The first is that many of NHTSA’s regulations explicitly refer to human anatomy. The rule regarding the car’s braking system, for example, says it “shall be activated by means of a foot control.” The rules around headlights and turn signals refer to hands. NHTSA can easily change how it interprets those rules, but there’s no reasonable way to define Google’s software—capable as it is—as having body parts.
This is massive news for the self-driving technology industry, but it is only the start.
