Google, Ford, Volvo, Uber, and Lyft announced on April 26, Tuesday that they are joining forces to form a gargantuan lobbying group to put pressure on the United States government about autonomous vehicles (AVs). The tech, automaker, and ride-sharing companies formed the new Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. Its main goal will be to support autonomous driving as federal regulars and lawmakers start dealing with the idea of driverless cars.

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The coalition also said in a statement it hopes to educate lawmakers, politicians, and the public about the benefits of self-driving vehicles. They include those related to safety and society, according to Reuters.  

David Strickland is a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and will head the new union, according to The Verge. He will serve as the group's adviser and spokesperson.

Strickland will basically lobby the federal agency that he worked for. The Department of Transportation (DOT) has asked NHTSA to create a set of rules for robot cars by early summer 2016.

Google, Ford, and Uber are the most well-known companies in the Coalition. It also includes Sweden-based Volvo Cars that is owned by a Chinese company, and Uber's rival Lyft.

The forming of the new group happened a day before the NHTSA's second public hearing on self-driving cars at Stanford University in California. Meanwhile, the first hearing took place at DOT's headquarters in Washington, DC.

Strickland said in a statement that self-driving auto tech will make US roads and highways safer and less crowded. The coalition will work with the feds to create a clear set of federal rules to make the deployment of AVs a smoother process.

In an interview Strickland noted that companies want to deploy driverless cars safely. They do not want to take shortcuts in the process.  

Each of the big companies in the new coalition has taken steps to develop self-driving tech. Google has racked up more than a million total miles of autonomous driving in California, Washington State, and Texas. Meanwhile, Ford is testing self-driving technology in Michigan.  

NHTSA said in February hat federal law could classify the artificial intelligence (AI) in Google's self-driving cars as a "driver."   

Here's the first self-driving truck: