Google calls for Congress to speed up self driving car legislation

The head of Alphabet's Google self-driving car programme will urge the U.S. Congress on Tuesday to grant national auto safety regulators new authority to speed the introduction of self-driving cars on American roads. Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving cars programme, will tell the Senate Commerce Committee that legislators should grant new authority to the U.S. Transportation Department to help get fully autonomous vehicles on the road, according to his prepared testimony, which was reviewed by Reuters. 'We propose that Congress move swiftly to provide the secretary of transportation with new authority to approve life saving safety innovations. The head of Alphabet's Google self-driving car programme will urge the U.S. Congress on Tuesday to grant new authority to speed the introduction of self-driving cars on American roads. In January, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it may waive some vehicle safety rules to allow more driverless cars to operate on U.S. roads as part of a broader effort to speed up development of self-driving vehicles. NHTSA said Friday in a report there are significant legal hurdles to allowing fully autonomous vehicles without steering wheels.