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ByJustinPritchard The Associated Press MOUNTAIN VIEW Hustling to bring cars that drive themselves to a road near you, Google finds itself somewhere that has frus- trated many before: Wait- ing on the Department of Motor Vehicles. The tech titan wants the freedom to give the public access to self-driving pro- totypes it has been testing on public roads since the summer. Before granting that permission, California regulators want Google to prove these cars of the fu- ture already drive as safely as people. The Department of Mo- tor Vehicles was supposed to write precedent-setting rules of the road by last Jan. 1. Nearly a year later, it is still struggling. After all, the agency is geared to administering driving tests and registering cars, not settling complicated ques- tions the technology raises. If the cars' advanced sen- sors and computing power can drive better than hu- mans, do they need a steer- ing wheel and pedals? Would a person even need to be inside? Google says no on both. Regulators don't want to be blamed for unnecessarily stalling the arrival of robo- chauffeurs that can see far- ther, react faster and don't text, speed or fall asleep. They've implored Google and traditional automakers also developing the technol- ogy to share safety data, but companies in competition don't willingly reveal trade secrets. Delay is not what Google had in mind when it pushed the 2012 legislation that made California one of the few states officially to au- thorize self-driving cars. Google's hope was to trade the independence to inno- vate without government oversight for regulatory cer- tainty. Three years later, both a company that abhors bu- reaucracy and a DMV strug- gling to write rules beyond its expertise are exasper- ated. While self-driving cars are not close to being widely available, Google hinted in 2014 it wanted to get self-driving cars into public hands as early as 2016, probably starting with employees outside its small corps of self-driving car experts. More recently, the proj- ect's leader, Chris Urmson, has said he doesn't want his eldest son to need a driver's license when he turns 16 in 3- years. The bubble-shaped, two- seater prototype can't go anywhere, any time. It is limited to places Google has surveyed in far greater detail than its online maps. It can't handle fog or snow. Top speed: 25 mph. Google's 73 cars are among the 98 test vehicles that California's DMV has given 10 companies permis- sion to test publicly. Though trained test drivers must sit behind the wheel, Google wants to re- move the wheel and ped- als for the general pub- lic. Its argument: It would be safer to take all control away than expect a person to snap safely to attention in an emergency. As a famously data- driven company, Google proposes a composite sketch of evidence would show its cars are safe. Each day, Google runs more than 3 million miles of computerized driving simulations. Engineers de- vise challenging real-world situations, then see how the cars respond. A "functional safety analysis" assesses what hardware or software might fail and how to min- imize those risks. Public road testing is the last piece. Google reports its cars have been involved in 17 collisions over 2.2 mil- lion miles of testing, nearly 1.3 million miles in self- driving mode. While that accident rate appears to be higher than for human driv- ers (though Google disputes that), accident summaries Google has published say its cars did not cause any accident. Google has pressed Cali- fornia's DMV to publish reg- ulations far harder than any other company. TECHNOLOGY Google antsy as California slow on self-driving car rules TONYAVELAR—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE Google's new self-driving prototype car is presented during a demonstration at the Google campus in Mountain View. 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