California

Bills aimed at closing traffic ticket loophole for driverless cars get initial green light

A pair of bills that aim, in part, to close a loophole prohibiting autonomous vehicles from getting traffic tickets cleared major hurdles in the California legislature this week

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Two separate California bills, seeking to add tougher regulations over the driverless car industry, got the greenlight this week to continue making their way through the legislature in hopes of ultimately moving to a full vote.

The bills come in the wake of a series of reports from the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit, which raised serious safety and ethical concerns regarding oversight of the technology. 

Currently, transportation laws in California require traffic tickets to be issued to drivers. As NBC Bay Area reported last year, law enforcement has interpreted that to mean in the case of autonomous vehicles violating the rules of the road, no tickets can be written since there are no human drivers present.

“There's no authority in the vehicle code to actually cite a company or to cite a car,” said Rep. Phil Ting, who authored legislation to close the apparent loophole.  “It allows law enforcement to cite companies similar to the way that we would be cited.”

In addition to making driverless car companies liable for moving violations, Ting’s bill also seeks to standardize communication between driverless car companies and emergency responders by requiring autonomous vehicles to be equipped with a two-way communication device that would allow first responders to remotely connect with dispatch operators for driverless car companies within 30 seconds.  The legislation, AB-1777, passed unanimously in the Assembly’s Transportation Committee on Monday. 

Assemblymember Phil  speak with Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban in Sacramento about his legislation that aims to close a bizarre loophole that allows driverless cars to avoid traffic citations when they violate the rules of the road.
Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, speaks with Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban in Sacramento about his legislation that aims to close a little-known loophole that allows driverless cars to avoid traffic citations when they violate the rules of the road.

Senator Dave Cortese’s bill, SB-915, aims to add additional oversight by giving California’s more than 400 cities the power to write their own individual regulations relating to driverless cars, which could include closing the loophole on traffic ticket immunity, but also the power to enact new rules dictating allowable hours of operation, location, and fleet sizes.  Currently, the California DMV and the California Public Utilities Commission share regulatory responsibilities over autonomous vehicles for the entire state.

“Local governments currently do not have the authority,” Cortese said during a Senate Transportation hearing on Tuesday. "Governance of local streets and roads has long fallen under the jurisdiction of state and local governments, the operations of [autonomous vehicles] should be no different.”

Cortese's bill, in a 10 to 5 vote, received enough support to pass through the Senate Transportation Committee late Tuesday evening. Both bills now move on to their respective Appropriations Committees in the Assembly and Senate.  If approved, the proposed laws could go to a full vote of the legislature sometime this summer.

Sen. Dave Cortese, D-Campbell, authored legislation to give each of California's more than 400 cities the power to write their own regulations governing autonomous vehicles.
Sen. Dave Cortese, D-Campbell, authored legislation to give each of California's more than 400 cities the power to write their own regulations governing autonomous vehicles.

The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, which represents major driverless car companies like Waymo and Cruise, opposes both bills, arguing Cortese’s attempts to give cities the ability to write their own laws could create a chaotic hodgepodge of regulations across the state that could stunt innovation.

“Regulatory certainty is crucial to allow for companies to expend the type of resources they need to expend for companies to deploy to scale,” said Renée Gibson, the association’s director of government affairs.  “So when you have the potential for hundreds of local jurisdictions to set up their own regulations, that creates a patchwork of [regulations] and that creates an incredible amount of uncertainty.”

Cortese argues that since driverless cars have long argued their tech is superior to even human drivers and can adapt to all sorts of scenarios, he doesn’t understand why the prospect of having to program the cars to adhere to different rules in different cities would be too problematic.

“How are taxis and rideshares doing it with human drivers,” he said.  “Supposedly, this wealth of intellect that’s built into the computer chip and the coding is not going to be able to do the same damn thing?  You can’t have it both ways.”

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