California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law on Tuesday that will allow autonomous vehicles such as Google’s (GOOG) to be tested on California roads, the Associated Press reported. As a precautionary measure, the law requires a licensed individual to be in the driver’s seat at all times to take over control if need be. “Today we’re looking at science fiction becoming tomorrow’s reality — the self-driving car,” Brown said while signing the bill at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. “Anyone who gets inside a car and finds out the car is driving will be a little skittish, but they’ll get over it.”
Google received its first license to test its autonomous vehicles on public roadways in Nevada earlier this year. The tests have shown that the car is just as safe, if not safer than vehicles operated by human drivers, having logged more than 300,000 accident-free miles. Google co-founder Sergey Brin predicted that autonomous vehicles will be available to consumers within a decade, however the company has no plans to commercially produce its own vehicles.