The mayor of San Francisco is tired of his city serving as an autonomous vehicle test track.
In a letter sent to California transportation regulators on Wednesday, Daniel Lurie called for new statewide standards governing how autonomous vehicles respond during major disruptions, saying that stricter measures will strengthen the AV industry.
“California’s challenge now is not just whether autonomous vehicles can operate safely under normal conditions, but also whether they can perform reliably during extraordinary ones,” Lurie wrote.
“Prove it before you deploy it,” Lurie added, “Before deploying autonomous vehicles, autonomous vehicle operators must demonstrate major event operational readiness through testing and exercises.”
Lurie’s letter described two incidents that he says made new regulations necessary. The mayor said that on the evening of the Fourth of July, heavy traffic around San Francisco’s waterfront left numerous Waymo vehicles immobilized, blocking travel lanes and worsening a traffic jam that trapped municipal shuttles and thousands of people trying to leave the city’s fireworks celebration.
Lurie also pointed to a citywide power outage in December 2025 that similarly stranded Waymo’s robotaxis and paralyzed public transportation.
“As autonomous vehicles comprise a larger share of the vehicles on our streets, they become part of the transportation system itself,” Lurie wrote. “That carries responsibilities beyond serving individual passengers. It means supporting the critical functions that define life in a major city.”
Lurie’s proposal would require robotaxi companies to demonstrate the ability to quickly clear disabled vehicles from active lanes, dynamically reroute service during emergencies, share real-time operational data with local agencies, and prove through testing that their systems can withstand major surges in traffic and demand.
Lurie’s proposal signals a shift away from voluntary commitments by companies like Waymo and toward mandatory performance requirements — a view shared by an increasing number of government agencies.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent a letter to major AV companies on July 8 and said it noticed “a clear pattern of driverless AVs interfering with law enforcement and other first responders,” and called for all AV operators to “immediately focus their resources on fixing this issue.”
“Emergency scenes are not rare or extreme ‘edge cases,'” the agency wrote. “Public trust on our roads is earned, not given.”
Waymo told Business Insider that the company appreciates Lurie’s input and said that its robotaxis have successfully supported some of the city’s biggest events, including the FIFA World Cup games,
“The City and Waymo share a mutual goal of providing safe and accessible transportation for visitors and residents alike,” said a Waymo spokesperson. “We will continue to partner with the City’s agencies, collaborating with them on the learnings based on the millions of rides we have provided in San Francisco.”
California requires AV companies to clear two separate regulatory hurdles before launching a robotaxi service — one through the Department of Motor Vehicles and another through the California Public Utilities Commission. Six companies, namely Waymo, Zoox, Nuro, Motional, Apollo Auto, and WeRide, have already secured permits allowing them to test fully driverless vehicles on public roads without a human safety driver.
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