A gaggle of firms backed by robotaxi firms is celebrating the failure of a California bill that might have allowed cities to manage the controversial autonomous vehicles and superb them for violating traffic laws.
“The bill would have denied safety and accessibility to millions of Californians,” said the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, a gaggle that represents self-driving taxi firms Waymo and Cruise, in addition to Uber and UPS.
State Senator Dave Cortese withdrew his Senate Bill 915 on Monday after a legislative evaluation for the Assembly Transportation Committee proposed changes that he said Tuesday would have gutted the local control provisions.
“The elected officials best positioned to enact appropriate security measures are at the local level,” Cortese said.
Critics had identified that a patchwork of local regulations would make it not possible for robotaxis to operate easily across borders and effectively serve public needs. The committee's evaluation said the bill would supply:unnecessary local controltowards autonomous vehicles and could lead on to municipalities engaging in “profit policing” and targeting the vehicles as a income.
Cortese said an amendment to the bill that limited initial regulation of robotaxis to cities with 250,000 or more residents, with smaller neighboring cities allowed to adopt the ordinances, addressed concerns about fragmentation. The bill explicitly prohibited cities from banning the vehicles, and any mayor who tried to ban them in practice by drastically limiting their numbers would face overwhelming public opposition, he said.
The bill arose from a legal quirk that puts control over the deployment and operation of autonomous taxis within the hands of state authorities, while local governments don’t have any say or ability to impose fines if the vehicles violate laws. This centralized control, together with a history of chaos attributable to robotaxis deployed in San Francisco, has made some municipalities wary of the technology.
Under state law, the deployment and operation of robotaxis shall be overseen by the California Public Utilities Commission — which regulates personal transportation, including ride-sharing firms reminiscent of Uber and Lyft, but not traditional taxis — and the Department of Motor Vehicles.
In San Francisco, state authorities allowed the introduction of robotaxis despite opposition from town government. General Motors' Cruise vehicles, which have been blamed for many of the following robotaxi problems in San Francisco, were grounded by the DMV in October since the agency called them an “unacceptable risk to the public.”
Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched a Investigation of twenty-two accidents involving Waymo Robotaxis in Arizona, including reports of “collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects such as gates and chains, collisions with parked vehicles, and cases where the (cars) appeared to disregard traffic safety control devices.”
Waymo said in a press release on Tuesday that the corporate conducts greater than 50,000 trips per week “in some of the most demanding and complex environments” and can proceed to work with the transportation safety agency.
The company said opposing Cortese's bill “preserves the opportunity for Californians to continue to enjoy the benefits of autonomous vehicles.” Waymo said it could work with regulators and policymakers to expand its service “safely and prudently.”
Cortese believes the proliferation of robotaxis will result in tragedy and fuel public anger over the vehicles getting in people's way. He would reintroduce the bill or support one other lawmaker who has done so, he said.
“The community must be safe,” Cortese said.
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