Nous avons déjà vu dans des news récentes que Google réservait – légitimement – quelques avantages et fonctionnalités à ses propres services et machines. Ainsi par exemple Google Maps Navigation, la vue 3D des bâtiments en vectoriel ou encore Google Music, autant de services qui ne sont disponibles pour le moment que sur les smartphones Android.

I wasn’t long in the backseat of Google’s self-driving Toyota Prius, cruising smoothly down California Highway 85, before a sober, gray-flannel question pierced my giddy techno-utopian buzz: Is this legal?

On principle, it would seem downright churlish to penalize Google’s upstanding Prius — which kept letter-perfect lane position, following distance and speed-limit compliance — while all around us human drivers committed a panoply of illegal acts: talking on their phones, speeding, changing lanes without signaling, tailgating, you name it.

But what does the law say about autonomous vehicles?