Video: Google's self-driving car is legal (in the US)

Google's video showing a trip to a Taco Bell in a self-driving car was within the law, according to police who monitored the test drive.

Google's video showing a blind man taking a ride to a Taco Bell in a self-driving car was legal, according to Google and the police department which monitored the test.



In the video, Google's self-driving car takes Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, to a Morgan Hill, Calif. Taco Bell for a taco or two.

Google released the video to celebrate that it has safely completed 200,000 miles of computer-lead driving.

The video shows Mahan sitting in the driver's seat as the car steers itself, using radar and lasers to make sure the road is clear. The car takes him through the drive-through of Taco Bell, then to the dry cleaners as Mahan jokes that "this is some of the best driving I've ever done."

"Where this would change my life is that it would give me the independence and the flexibility to go to the places I both want to go and need to go, when I need to do those things," Mahan says in the video.

Normally, placing a blind man behind the wheel could be grounds for an arrest. But the search giant said that the Google representative seated in the passenger seat was able to stop the car in the case of an emergency - which meets one of the restrictions set in place by Nevada, which approved a program to put self-driving cars on the road in the future. Nevada law also prohibits an inebriated driver from taking the wheel of an autonomous vehicle.

Of course, the test took place in California, not Nevada. California doesn't have any clear guidelines for self-driving cars, but Google and police monitors said everything was perfectly legal with Mahan's trip.

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