Are Google's Driverless Cars Legal?  Google's project to design
driverless vehicles raised several questions about the future of
driving. But it also raised a more topical question: Are
Google's heavily-modified driverless vehicle prototypes even
legal? We found out.  Researchers have been working on
driverless vehicles since the late 1970s; European governments
spent nearly $1 billion in the 1980s and '90s on automated
vehicles, including a Mercedes sedan that passed other vehicles
on the German autobahn in 1995 at speeds of 110 mph without
human input.  In revealing its project Sunday, Google said it
had racked up nearly 140,000 miles in its vehicles on public
roads, including the Pacific Coast Highway and famous spots such
as San Francisco's twisty Lombard Street. The computing giant
says it alerted local law enforcement officials whenever testing
took place.   According to California officials, there are no
laws that would bar Google from testing such models, as long as
there's a human behind the wheel wh