The California Legislature passed a bill this month to require the safety of human drivers in heavy-duty robotic trucks for at least the next five years.
On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom ended it.
“Considering…the existing regulatory framework that currently and sufficiently governs this particular technology, this bill is not necessary at this time,” the governor said in a veto message.
The bill was sponsored by the Teamsters union and supported by traffic safety advocates. Opponents included driverless technology companies, Silicon Valley lobbyists and several chambers of commerce and business leadership groups. Supporters focused on security and employment, opponents on business growth and technological progress.
Even with strong business support, the Legislature passed the bill with bipartisan support: 105 lawmakers voted in favor, six voted against, and nine members abstained.
The bill had been introduced by Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters), who said Friday that she was “deeply disappointed” with the veto. She said characterizing the bill as a “ban” on autonomous trucks, as the driverless vehicle industry has done, was a “disheartening mischaracterization.” She said she hopes the Legislature and the governor “have a truly meaningful process to protect the public and workers going forward.”
With the Legislature out of the picture, at least for now, the California Department of Motor Vehicles will decide when self-driving trucks that weigh between 10,000 and 80,000 pounds when full can hit the road in California without any humans on board.
Legislative discontent with the DMV played a major role in the debate. “The DMV has not done a great job regulating this space,” Assembly Transportation Committee Chairwoman Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) said at a hearing on the bill in May.
Lawmakers and city officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Monica have complained about the DMV's lax enforcement of autonomous vehicles, which they believe puts business interests ahead of traffic flow and public safety. The issue came to a head this year when San Francisco's fire chief and other emergency services raised the alarm about robotaxis that interfered with emergency services and the inability of companies to get them off the road in time.
In 2021, the Legislature itself put all power over autonomous vehicle safety in the hands of the DMV. Robotaxi fares are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission. Newsom appointed DMV Director Steve Gordon, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, to his position. Newsom also named all five members of the California Public Utilities Commission, including John Reynolds, former chief counsel for Cruise, one of the robotaxi companies that has drawn the ire of emergency services.
DMV regulations require human safety drivers in experimental robotic vehicles, and the DMV decides when the experiment ends and the vehicles are ready for deployment. Tesla is using its own customers to experiment on public roads with its fully self-driving technology, but the DMV has said that's okay because Tesla customers are legally required to pay attention.
The DMV also prohibits a company from falsely marketing autonomous technology to customers. The department launched an investigation to determine whether the name Full Self-Driving violates that rule. The investigation is now in its 28th month and the DMV has declined to say how many more months or years it is expected to take.
Newsom rarely talks about the DMV. When asked by a reporter in May if he was concerned about lawmakers' criticism of the agency, Newsom said he has “great confidence” in Gordon and his team.
