California lawmaker seeks to allow self-driving car testing on public roads

A new bill in California's legislature that aims to smooth the path for fully driverless vehicles on the state's public roads is being proposed by an assembly member who has received thousands of dollars from Google. It is one of two bills currently under discussion that would relax the rules on testing self-driving cars in the US's largest state and the test bed for automated driving. The bill being promoted by Mike Gatto, who represents several communities in and near Los Angeles, would allow Google and others to test vehicles on public streets without a steering wheel, brake pedal or human safety driver. Gatto has received contributions from Google and Ford, which is also testing driverless car technology in California, according to state campaign finance records. Alphabet, Google's parent company, is considering spinning out its self-driving car project into a separate business.