California passes law paving the way for driverless cars

California just added its name to the list of states allowing driverless cars to operate on public roads — and inadvertently made David Hasselhoff’s work on Knight Rider a bit more relevant to future generations.

Governor Jerry Brown signed bill SB1298 into law today, thus adding automated vehicles to the state’s safety standards and permissions. This is, of course, wonderful news for tech giant and California native Google, which has been developing its own driverless car for the past few years. Brown even visited Google headquarters to sign the proper documents.

California joins Nevada as the second state to allow driverless vehicles on the road. Under the new law, a person is still required to sit behind the wheel while driving the car in case the automated technology fails to function. (Nevada’s law isn’t as strict.)

The state did post a video of Brown’s visit to Google HQ  online earlier, complete with Google CEO Sergey Brin on a podium wearing some slick Google Glasses. However, that video is now marked private for some reason. (My guess is that it’ll get fixed soon-ish.)