U.S. transportation officials today released early guidelines for the development of self-driving cars, including recommendations for lawmakers who are writing laws governing the technology.

Even though Google's self-driving car has been spotted roaming the streets of Silicon Valley, and Audi and Toyota showed off some autonomous vehicle tech at this year's CES, the technology is still in its infancy and solid rules for how it should be handled are still a few years out, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said today.

Still, the agency has some broad recommendations for things that state legislators should consider when crafting bills that cover self-driving cars. States like Nevada, California, and Florida have already passed legislation governing the tech, but NHTSA said today that "some states are anxious for guidance on how to proceed."

The recommendations cover licensing, testing, and operation of self-driving vehicles. But NHTSA "does not recommend at this time that states permit operation of self-driving vehicles for purposes other than testing," so lawmakers should really focus on licensing and testing right now.

On licensing, NHTSA recommends that drivers understand how to operate a self-driving vehicle, which means they'll either need a regular state-issued driver's license or a separate one for self-driving cars. So, visions of putting your dog in a car and having your self-driving car shuttle him off to the vet (or junior to pre-school) without you will have to wait - for now. A training course, meanwhile, should cover "how to resume control of [a self-driving] vehicle in the event that it cannot continue to operate automatically," the NHTSA said.

For those testing autonomous vehicles, the NHTSA said the cars should easily transition between self-driving mode and driver mode, be able to inform a driver if self-driving mode has failed, make sure that federally required safety requirements are followed, and record all data about crashes or malfunctions.

NHTSA, meanwhile, also developed a five-point system that categorizes levels of automation, with one being no automation and five being totally independent. Right now, the agency is working on level one technology (function-specific automation like adaptive cruise control) and are planning for research on levels two through four.

"One of the main end products of this initial research program would be recommendations for what requirements are needed for the driver-vehicle interface to allow safe operation and transition between automated and non-automated vehicle operation," the report said. "We plan to complete the first phase of this research in the next two years."

For more, check out Will Google Make Money Off the Self-Driving Car?

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