Google to urge Congress to help get self-driving cars on roads

A Google self-driving car is seen inside a lobby at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California November 13, 2015.

Reuters/Stephen Lam

The head of Alphabet Inc’s Google self-driving car program 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 program, 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 life­saving safety innovations. This new authority would permit the deployment of innovative safety technologies that meet or exceed the level of safety required by existing federal standards, while ensuring a prompt and transparent process,” according to the prepared testimony.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Paul Simao)