Nevada DMV Regulations for Testing Driverless Vehicles
Nevada is said to be the first state in the United States of America to pass the driverless vehicle authorization law on the roadway. The Legislative Commission of the state’s DMV has approved the regulations with respect to testing of the driverless vehicles on the Nevada roads in last February. This has paved a way to the automobile companies to test their vehicles (including both cars and trucks) autonomously on the roads. So if you are wondering this might be a marketing gimmick, then you might want to think on a positive perspective.
Advantages of Driverless Vehicles
Knowing the potential advantages of these driverless vehicles is very important before knowing why Nevada State has approved “this Law:”http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/06/22/nevada-passes-law-authorizing-driverless-cars/ . Fewer traffic congestions and accidents might be anticipated with all the vehicles going autonomous. This increases reliable and faster reaction time. It relieves the driver capacity in the vehicle and accommodates an additional passenger in the vehicle. Autonomous vehicles have higher speed limits as compared to the manual driven vehicles. Besides this, DMV has its own age constraint rules in the vehicles; these autonomous vehicles will relieve the passengers from following this rule in the autonomous vehicles.
Driverless Vehicle – The Technology
As the technology is advancing year by year, every company has been innovating new things with the help of these advancements in the arena. Driverless vehicle is one application of artificial intelligence where the autonomous vehicle is capable of transporting human beings in the car on its own. Hence they are most commonly called as self-driving car or robot car. Driverless vehicles sense the surroundings with GPS, computer vision, radar and other techniques. Few other advanced control systems are well equipped with sensory devices which interpret the path and any other obstacles and lead your vehicle automatically to its destination.
Nevada DMV
Department of Motor vehicles (DMV) is the private organization which serves the public in various traffic, road and vehicle related help along the lines of Federal guidance. Nevada DMV strived hard for a couple of years to get permission to allow the testing of driverless vehicles on the roads and has been successful most recently. The Nevada DMV offers various services like capturing your photograph, conducting eye exams, collecting legal presence documents and validating them, conducting written tests for various classes of vehicles, conducting behind the wheels or road driving tests, renewal of license, issue of new license, address change requests, distributing DMV drivers handbook and many more. You can visit DMV Nevada website to know about their services both online as well as in office here.
The Driverless Vehicles Testing Law
This law was passed in July 2011 by Nevada legislature where in the DMV had just 9 months to come up with all the requirements for the vehicle companies to prove that their cars should perform what every teenager is capable of doing when applying for a learner’s permit . The vehicle should be able to manage 75 mph speed on the highway. The vehicle should be able to avoid construction, pedestrians and debris on the Las Vegas strip. For the testing purpose 2 trained drivers should always be present in the car while on the road and be ready to take control. Besides this, Nevada DMV expects you to have a separate data recorder to collect information about any crashes and if the car is appropriately programmed, then there should not be any chances of accidents at all.
Fill out the application worth $100. However, companies should put a cash bond worth $1 – $3 million depending upon number of cars the company wishes to release on road test. If you are wondering on how exactly you can recognize and differentiate this vehicle from other ordinary cars, then it is pretty simple. The autonomous car will have a dark red license plate.
The law mandatorily requires the driver’s license endorsement for the driver or the operator of this autonomous vehicle if he or she has to comply with the Nevada’s DMV and traffic rules. Nevada is still in the initial phase of developing licensing procedures in order to avail the certificate before vehicle is registered in the state. The compliance must meet all the safety requirements as well as provide the driver’s license which can be registered in Nevada.
Residents will be able to apply for the self-driving vehicle in Nevada and all the requirements are covered under the Government regulations. The self driver should be able to provide a certified form stating that they clearly understand the driverless technology, its capabilities, and what it is not capable of. Also, the applicant should be able to show the statistics or a report of all the data pertinent to the autonomous testing. Nevada DMV has partnered with Google, testing professionals, automobile manufacturers, universities, law enforcement companies, insurance companies and many others in order to create new regulations.
