Driverless cars haven’t always obeyed the rules of the road but, unlike vehicles with humans behind the wheel, they’ve gotten away with it.
That’s about to change.
A slew of statewide autonomous vehicle regulations based on Assembly Bill 1777 will go into effect July 1 — including a process for law enforcement to issue a “notice of AV noncompliance,” the California Department of Motor Vehicles announced Tuesday.
Here’s how this new law will work, and what other rules self-driving vehicle manufacturers will soon have to follow.
Where the rubber and robots meet the road
The new regulation was developed “to address the gap in how moving violations are handled for autonomous vehicles,” said Jonathan Groveman, a DMV spokesperson.
Although California is home to several autonomous vehicle operators, the most expansive at this point is Waymo — which has driverless robotaxis navigating passengers around the San Francisco Bay Area and dozens of cities in Los Angeles County.
Seven months ago, a self-driving Waymo made an illegal U-turn at a traffic light right in front of police officers in San Bruno.
The image of an officer peering into the empty driver’s seat of the offending vehicle may have been good for a chuckle, but other incidents have been no laughing matter. Situations such as a Waymo failing to stop for a school bus in Atlanta or striking a child in Santa Monica highlighted how law enforcement officers couldn’t carry out traditional traffic enforcement with driverless cars.
According to previous state law, traffic violations were issued to a human driver “to address driving behavior,” and were “applied to that individual’s driver license,” Groveman said in an email.
“Because autonomous vehicles do not have a human driver — and existing citations must be issued to a licensed person — the law establishes a new mechanism that allows moving violations to be issued to an autonomous vehicle manufacturer,” he said.
Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina previously told The Times that the company’s vehicles already are subject to close, ongoing oversight by California regulators, and that the company’s autonomous driving system “is designed to respect the rules of the road.”
Autonomous vehicle advocates have said driverless taxis improve road safety conditions in communities in which they operate. In the recent Santa Monica incident, for example, the Waymo vehicle braked hard before impact — resulting in a “significant reduction in impact speed and severity” that the company said “is a demonstration of the material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver.”
How do violations work?
Beginning July 1, California law enforcement agencies may issue notices of AV noncompliance when an autonomous vehicle doesn’t obey traffic laws. Since such vehicles operate through a mix of integrated hardware and software systems, “the manufacturer is the entity responsible for correcting the behavior,” Groveman said.
When a notice is submitted, the DMV will review the incident, conduct any necessary investigation and determine what remediation, if any, is required, he said.
“If a manufacturer is unable to correct the issue or if repeated noncompliance occurs, the department may take administrative action, including restricting or suspending the manufacturer’s operating permit,” Groveman said.
The other entity that investigates and issues recalls on autonomous vehicles is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Waymo specifically has been the focus of several NHTSA investigations, including a recall of more than 1,200 vehicles last year because of a software defect that led to a series of minor crashes.
Other new regulations for driverless cars
Under newly adopted state regulations, autonomous vehicle manufacturers must:
- Complete a total of 50,000 or 500,000 miles of testing, depending on the vehicle’s weight classification, before applying to get the vehicle on the road. Testing must include trips with a human behind the wheel for safety as well as completely driverless journeys.
- Annually update first responder interaction plans, access to manual vehicle override systems, two-way communication links with 30-second response times and training requirements to ensure safe and timely interactions.
The laws also:
- Authorize local emergency response officials to issue emergency geofencing directives requiring autonomous vehicle manufacturers to direct their fleets to leave an identified area within two minutes to limit conflicts during active emergency situations;
- Establish standards for remote operations personnel, including licensing qualifications, as well as permitting and training requirements for remote drivers and assistants;
- Modernize data reporting requirements, focusing on new safety metrics including system failures, vehicle immobilizations and hard-braking events;
- Authorize the DMV to impose targeted operational restrictions on manufacturers, including fleet size, location, speed and weather limits, when necessary for public safety;
- Remove the prohibition on operating autonomous vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more, opening the California market to autonomous vehicle freight operations — subject to applicable state and federal requirements;
- Allow autonomous transit vehicles with a rating of up to 14,001 pounds gross vehicle weight to be operated by public entities or universities, providing a new pathway for transit service innovation.
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