Driverless Cars Are Legal In Michigan, As Long As There's A Driver

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, has signed legislation that permits “self-driving” cars on the state’s roads — but, as you might guess, there’s a catch.



Under the new rules, self-driving cars will need to be “M”-tagged, just like all the Aston Martin press loaners in the Road&Track parking lot. The manufacturers of the original, unmodified vehicles won’t be liable for damage that is done by the modified, autonomous version. This seems like it should be obvious — is Honda liable now for what so-called ricer Integra GS-Rs do? — but it was apparently both important and controversial.

The law also requires that there be a human being present in the driver’s seat just in case it all goes wrong. This job — driver of driverless car — will no doubt join “job-bank union worker” in the Pantheon of highly-desirable do-nothing auto-industry jobs, although my favorite occupation of this type is “tire tester” at the TRC outside Marysville, Ohio. You just drive a truck around the banking for eight hours at a time. There’s no steering input required because the banking steers the car for you, so many people bring books and prop said books up against the steering wheel so they can read while they drive. Yes, your humble author applied for this job twenty years ago, and yes, he was rejected for being under-qualified.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • Turboprius Turboprius on Dec 28, 2013

    Driverless cars are like electric ones: good idea, but they'll never be perfect. Even the Tesla can only go 300 miles, and the more mainstream ones are even lower. They're also like Liberals, but let my GWB profile picture answer that for you.

  • JaySeis JaySeis on Dec 28, 2013

    I prefer my driverless car look like a dome car (railroad) with a wet bar, recliner, 60" HDTV, satellite reception, heck make the recliner a massage recliner. Downstairs would be the head, shower, and Murphy bed. 'Cept for the dome, it could look like a shipping container for all I care.

  • DenverMike DenverMike on Dec 29, 2013

    The 1st 'baby step' would be when you can jump out of your car and it parks itself within a parking lot. You pull up to the front door of a restaurant, mall, theater, office building, apartment/condo, parking garage, regional airport, sports event, etc, you get out, and the car goes off and does its thing. It'll come back at a prescribed time or when you call for it. Once that becomes commonplace and driverless cars are fully accepted and trusted (offroad), then they may be accepted for public streets on a limited basis. Statistics will eventually prove, without a doubt, driverless cars are 1000's of times safer than humans that tend to drive with their head up their @$$ and unintended acceleration goes to zero percent. One step at a time until we can have completely driverless cars, trucks and buses flying down the interstate. And much safer roads.

    • JimC2 JimC2 on Dec 29, 2013

      I'd wager we're a little closer to this "baby step" than we might realize. Take those cars that can parallel park themselves (at least it looks good on the TV commercials!). How about letting them parallel park themselves *without a driver inside*? Dah dah dahhhhhh (scary music here). And/or perpendicular park themselves. As in, stop, hop out, take your bags out of the trunk, etc., and press the "park" button on the keyfob. Walking away is optional.

  • CelticPete CelticPete on Dec 29, 2013

    Yup. Driverless cars are going to take over. In the future you won't even be allowed to drive your own car. You can count on that.. Driverless cars will be so much safer then regular cars they will grandfather out the old cars. Eventually you won't have the option to 'take over' at the wheel at all. But on this site I think this will be met with joy. The truth about cars has always been about promoting appliance cars near as I can tell. These things will make the Camry seem like the model T. (The model was actually really tricky to operate).

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