On Tuesday, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officially approved rules to allow the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads. The rules will take effect September 16, 2014.

The move has been a long time coming, with the DMV promising back in December 2013 that it would post regulations for public use of self-driving cars and then holding a public hearing in January to address concerns about them. These new rules will set a statewide standard for all manufacturers. (Although Google has been running pilot programs in Mountain View and elsewhere, it's not the only company pursuing an automated vehicle—Nvidia told Ars last week that Audi has plans to incorporate a “cruise control for stop-and-go traffic” feature in one of its cars come 2015.)

Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS), told Ars that the new rules could change how manufacturers proceed with their testing. “The DMV has a really, really difficult task, and I was impressed with the thoughtfulness of their approach,” he said. “I would say that anyone who is reading these documents will have to read very closely.”

According to the adopted regulatory text that the California DMV posted on Tuesday, a manufacturer which wants to test autonomous vehicles has to apply for a testing permit, certify its drivers to test the cars, and secure a $5 million insurance or safety bond. The testing permit must be renewed after one year or else it expires.

During the tests, an operator must remain in the driver's seat at all times and must obtain an “Autonomous Vehicle Testing (AVT) Program Test Vehicle Operator Permit” from the DMV. To obtain such a permit, the operator must go through a training program put together by the manufacturer and approved by the DMV, which includes “defensive driver training, including practical experience in recovering from hazardous driving scenarios” as well as “instruction that matches the level of the autonomous test vehicle driver’s experience operating the specific type of automated driving system technology with the level of technical maturity of the automated system.”

Although it may sound counter-intuitive that the operator of an autonomous vehicle has to undergo more training than a normal driver in order to hop in the driver's seat, Smith told Ars that that's reflective of “the paradox of automation.”

“As automated systems get more complex, human understanding also gets more complex,” Smith said. “For a vehicle to suddenly swerve to the right, a human would have to grab [the steering wheel]... training becomes even more important, and it would also be important for general users.” The DMV's rules are a response to the fact that the slightest potential for failure in an automated system could have drastic effects if the driver does not know how to react manually.

The new rules state that if the autonomous car is involved in an accident in any way, the incident must be reported within 10 days to the DMV. Also, if the operator of the autonomous vehicle has to disengage the car's autonomous system for any safety-related reason, that must be reported to the DMV, too.

Do the rules put forth today give any glimpse into how conservative the DMV will be in laying out its rules for public operation of self-driving cars in the near future? Smith seemed to think that today's announcement was a step forward toward a future of robo-cars. “You can see that the DMV is willing to push back against a range of commenters, from Google to traditional car manufacturers, and that the DMV is thinking on its own,” he said. “For better or worse this is an agency that's going to act independently.”