Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology companies like Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox will have to provide first responders with local, on-the-ground support when their robotaxis cause problems under a new California law. The companies could also face penalties if a robotaxi blocks police or firefighters for more than 30 minutes. Senate Bill 1246, which was signed into law by Gov.
Gavin Newsom, sets a series of new rules for AVs designed to improve safety and response times when they become disabled or interfere with emergency responders. The law also creates ways to hold these companies accountable if they don’t. The law follows a string of high-profile incidents in California in which robotaxis broke down and disrupted traffic, drove into crime scenes, or impeded first responders.
The bulk of those incidents involved Waymo, the largest robotaxi operator in the U.S. , which has about 4,000 autonomous vehicles in its commercial fleet across the country. About 1,200 of those are in the San Francisco Bay Area. A TechCrunch investigation earlier this year identified a number of incidents in which Waymo relied on first responders to manually drive its vehicles when they encountered problems.
Those incidents prompted state and federal lawmakers to call for stricter rules governing robotaxis, particularly how they behave around first responders. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) even sent a letter to AV developers demanding that they come up with “solutions” to the problem. This new California law attempts to address those concerns, at least in the state.
When an autonomous vehicle crashes, breaks down, blocks a roadway in an emergency, or gets in the way of law enforcement or first responders, there must be clear accountability,” said state Senator Dave Cortese, who introduced the bill. Under the law, AV developers can only employ remote drivers who are based in the United States and those drivers must hold a U.S. driver’s license. The requirement is meant to address concerns around how companies use remote operations when autonomous vehicles run into trouble.
The term “remote operations” has been interpreted very broadly and there is still little known about the methods AV companies use. The “remote drivers” term in the law is far more specific. It refers to a human who directly operates or drives the vehicle from afar.
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